Bringing Down the Duke

Set in Victorian England during the early women's suffrage movement and the opening of Oxford University's first colleges for women, the novel follows Annabelle Archer, a twenty-five-year-old woman working as an unpaid maid in her cousin Gilbert's household in Kent. Annabelle persuades Gilbert to let her attend Oxford, having secretly received a scholarship from the National Society for Women's Suffrage that requires her to support the campaign for women's voting rights. Gilbert, who controls her fate as the male head of household, agrees only after she argues that an Oxford-certified governess could earn money for his family. She conceals the political nature of her scholarship, knowing he would consider activism scandalous.

At a suffragist event on Parliament Square led by Lady Lucie Tedbury, secretary of the suffrage society, Annabelle meets Harriet "Hattie" Greenfield, the cheerful daughter of a powerful banking tycoon. While distributing pamphlets about amending the Married Women's Property Act, a law that would restore married women's right to own property, Annabelle steps into the path of a formidable aristocrat. His protection officer shoves her, but the man steadies her by the arm, and the two lock eyes before he warns her she plays a risky game. Hattie identifies him as the Duke of Montgomery, one of the most powerful men in the country. Lucie considers him a lost cause, but Annabelle suggests a subterfuge approach.

Sebastian Devereux, the Duke of Montgomery, is summoned by Queen Victoria to advise the Tory election campaign. The queen promises to help him recover Montgomery Castle, his ancestral seat lost by his father in a card game, if the Tories win. She also pressures him to host a New Year's Eve party, implying he needs a new wife after his divorce.

At Oxford, Annabelle studies ancient Greek warfare under Professor Jenkins, her late father's academic correspondent, and befriends Lady Catriona Campbell, the reserved daughter of a Scottish earl. Together with Hattie, they trade a borrowed wine cellar key to Sebastian's younger brother, Peregrin Devereux, in exchange for invitations to a house party at Claremont, Sebastian's Wiltshire estate, where the duke is expected to be absent.

Annabelle arrives at Claremont and falls asleep in the library beneath a vaulted ceiling painted with gold-leaf stars. She wakes to find Sebastian, recalled from France by the queen, standing over her. He mistakes her for Peregrin's paramour and orders her off his estate. The accusation echoes a painful episode from Annabelle's past, and she flees on foot. Sebastian realizes his error, rides after her, and offers a formal apology. She agrees to ride back with him, and both feel a powerful attraction.

The next morning, Annabelle collapses from exhaustion and malnourishment. Sebastian summons his physician and orders his staff to care for her. During her recovery, they exchange books and notes, building an intellectual rapport. Their attraction deepens as they take walks through his conservatory and stables, where she discovers he keeps retired horses rather than sending them to slaughter.

At a Christmas dinner hosted by Lady Lingham, Sebastian's widowed neighbor, Annabelle dismantles a lord's pseudoscientific argument about women's inferior intellect. Sebastian publicly salutes her logic. He invites her to his New Year's Eve party, and Hattie arranges a ball gown, for which Annabelle agrees to sit for Hattie's painting of Helen of Troy in exchange. At the ball, Lord Tristan Ballentine, a rakish war hero, pressures Annabelle into a waltz. Sebastian crosses the floor and claims her, then leads her into an alcove where they share their first passionate kiss.

The next day in the garden maze, Sebastian begins to declare his feelings, but his valet interrupts: Peregrin has fled the Welsh estate where Sebastian confined him, refusing a Royal Navy enlistment Sebastian arranged. Stricken, Sebastian departs for London, promising to return.

Back at Oxford, Annabelle struggles with finances and coursework. Jenkins offers her a paid position as his research assistant for an excavation in the Peloponnese. Lucie assigns Annabelle to petition Sebastian at the House of Lords, where he refuses to publicly support the property amendment but offers strategic help. Their meeting becomes a raw confrontation: Annabelle delivers an impassioned speech about the injustice of her situation, and Sebastian admits she is constantly on his mind. She enumerates the costs of becoming his mistress, and he acknowledges he cannot offer marriage. As she leaves, he reveals: "If we were of equal station, I would have proposed to you when we took our walk in the maze" (207).

At a Mendelssohn concert, Sebastian confronts Annabelle, consumed with jealousy over Jenkins. He admits Lady Lingham is no longer his lover, and Annabelle tells him the madness between them must stop. Shortly after, the suffragists march on Parliament Square. When a police officer sexually assaults Hattie, Annabelle punches him and is arrested. Sebastian finds her at Millbank Penitentiary, has her record expunged, and posts bail for both Annabelle and a fellow prisoner who has no one to help her.

At his Belgravia town house, Sebastian is distant. That night, Annabelle goes to his bedroom, and they make love. Afterward, she tells him the story that has shaped her life: at seventeen, a viscount's son seduced her with promises of elopement, then abandoned her. She became pregnant, lost the child, and was sent away by her father, who died before she could return. The next morning, Sebastian offers her a house and a yacht. Annabelle tells him she cannot be his mistress because she has been discarded before. He confesses he is in love with her, but she cannot respond, and he reads her silence as rejection.

At Oxford, Annabelle is temporarily expelled for the scandal. Jenkins proposes a practical marriage to shield her reputation and allow her to continue as his assistant. Meanwhile, Sebastian purchases Hattie's painting of Annabelle as Helen of Troy, then rides recklessly at Claremont and is thrown from his horse. He sees Annabelle's face in what he believes is his final moment, but the soft ground saves him.

That night, he proposes marriage, telling Annabelle his near-death fall clarified everything. She refuses, believing the scandal would destroy his legacy. Desperate to drive him away, she lies, claiming she never loved him and used him for the cause. He walks out. The next morning, Annabelle spots Peregrin at St. John's College and confronts him, confessing aloud for the first time that she loves the duke. Peregrin returns to Claremont, finds Sebastian devastated, and offers a crucial insight: Annabelle rejected him not despite the dukedom but because of it, unable to bear destroying everything Sebastian built.

Annabelle receives a letter from Gilbert disowning her after an anonymous tip about her scandals. Sebastian discovers Lady Lingham informed the queen about his prison visit and severs ties with her. In the House of Lords, he delivers a speech supporting the property amendment, invoking philosopher John Stuart Mill's argument that married women are legal slaves. He resigns as Tory campaign advisor and leaves the party. Annabelle, watching from the gallery, cries out and runs into the rain. Sebastian follows and tells her Montgomery Castle is lost, but he has chosen which side of history to stand on. She tells him she would have him with nothing but the clothes on his back and confesses she loves him so much she would rather be alone than with another man.

An epilogue set in April shows them married and honeymooning on a yacht in the Aegean Sea. Peregrin, thriving, works nearby as Jenkins's excavation apprentice. Sebastian reflects that changing his place in history for Annabelle was his best decision, suspecting history will eventually side with them.