**New York Times and USA Today Bestseller **

**New York Times and USA Today Bestseller **

** They call him the Duke of Ruin.**

** *To an undaunted wallflower, he's just the beast next door.***Wealthy and ruthless, Gabriel Duke clawed his way from the lowliest slums to the pinnacle of high society--and now he wants to get even.

Loyal and passionate, Lady Penelope Campion never met a lost or wounded creature she wouldn't take into her home and her heart.

When her imposing--and attractive--new neighbor demands she clear out the rescued animals, Penny sets him a challenge.* She will part with her precious charges, if he *can find them loving homes.

Done, Gabriel says. How hard can it be to find homes for a few kittens?

And a two-legged dog.

And a foul-mouthed parrot.

And a goat, an otter, a hedgehog . . .

Easier said than done, for a cold-blooded bastard who wouldn't know a loving home from a workhouse. Soon he's covered in cat hair, knee-deep in adorable, and bewitched by a shyly pretty spinster who defies his every attempt to resist. Now she's set her mind and heart on saving* him.*

Not if he ruins her first.