title: The Groom of the Tomb: or, Lancelot Darling's Decisions
author: Demian Katz
description: Demian Katz is a librarian and computer programmer at Villanova University. When not busy developing open source software, he maintains a bibliography of interactive books at gamebooks.org and studies 19th century popular literature.
zlib_text: ![](Images/image00272.jpeg)
  
  **Never Tempt a Duke**
  
   **He could not forgive her deception. She could not resist the desire they
  shared. When a scandal forces them to marry, their passions lead to dangerous
  secrets.**
  
  DEVERELL REGARDED his beautiful bride dispassionately. He had begun to
  think—hope—he could find in her what he’d never had before.
  
  That had disintegrated into ashes when she tricked him into marriage.
  
  Now, the wedding breakfast done, the revelry just beginning, she gave him a
  nervous glance from where she stood near the arbor. He returned her gaze, took
  note of the wreath of baby’s breath and pink roses atop her head, the Belgian
  lace train cascading from her shoulders and draping loosely over her bare arms
  before falling to the hem of her gown, and felt nothing. She was beautiful,
  fairy-like, virginal. Deceitful.
  
  A changeling, he told himself. She’d undergone so many transformations since
  he’d first met her that he wasn’t certain who she really was. Except that now
  s