title: Happily Ever After: Finding Grace in the Messes of Marriage
author: Desiring God
description: Thirty devotions for couples, written by thirteen staff and contributors to desiringGod.org.
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  ![](images/00002.jpg)
  
  The Rake's Wicked Proposal
  
  [(2009)](http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/years/2009.htm)
  
  
  A novel by
  
  [Carole Mortimer ](http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/carole-mortimer/)
  
  Lucian’s mouth curled disdainfully. ‘Do try to look a little happier, Grace,
  
  
  when I am about to ask your guardians for your hand in marriage.’
  
  
  Grace stared at him dazedly, sure that she could not have heard him
  
  
  correctly. He could not seriously think—could not imagine—
  
  
  ‘But I have no wish to marry you!’
  
  
  ‘Wish?’ He arched scathing brows. ‘Wishes, Grace, either yours or my own,
  
  
  do not enter into the situation we now find ourselves in,’ he assured her
  
  
  scornfully. ‘We have broken the unwritten law of Society.’
  
  
  Grace was well aware that she should not have allowed this man the liberty
  
  
  of kissing her—and had no idea how she was going to face her aunt again—
  
  but surely that did not mean they had to actually marry each other?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter One
  
  ‗Good gad! Is