On the fifth day of Christmas, the Ministry assigned Lady Agatha Valente five golden rakes to audit… and not a single one has the decency to stay put long enough to be inspected.
Lady Agatha Valente—Chief Romance Auditor, veteran of three scandal seasons, and the only woman trusted to wrangle the Ministry’s worst cases—has just received an urgent, goose-sealed memo:
Audit all five notorious bachelors in the region.
Prevent scandal.
Maintain public illusion of romance harmony.
Do not anger the goose.
Simple enough… until every rake vanishes.
Roman Naylen is rumored at the card tables.
Damon Strobel is spotted fleeing a duel.
Stefan Barnette supposedly fainted into a punch bowl.
Nicholas Valente is wooing half the opera box.
Elijah Crane was last seen climbing out a window.
…And somehow every eyewitness describes the exact same man.
Agatha does not have time for this.
The ton is in hysterics, the scandal sheets are printing theories involving sorcery, twins, and “quantum rakery,” and the Ministry has sent its most feared investigator—Toni the audit goose—to supervise.
As Agatha hunts these five suspiciously identical scoundrels across ballrooms, clubs, and one truly ill-fated audit ball, she keeps running into one infuriatingly charming gentleman who seems to know far too much about the investigation… and who looks excellent in every possible waistcoat.
And honestly?
That might be the biggest scandal of all.
Featuring:
• A romance auditor one incident away from snapping
• Five rakes, zero punctuality, unlimited chaos
• A Regency audit ball no one will ever emotionally recover from
• A goose-led investigation feared by all social classes
• Slow-burn banter, disguise disasters, and one rake who absolutely should not be this pretty
This Season, Agatha will either bring order to the ton…
or drown in paperwork, scandal, and one very inconvenient attraction.
Five rakes.
One goose.
Zero chance this ends without a headline.
