Betting on the Duke — Aileen Fish

She's secretly one of the top horse racers in the area, when she's not riding sidesaddle.

Lady Madeleine Lumley can't bear to part with her brother's prized stallion, but he must sell it in order to re-establish the family stud after the tragic loss of most of their horses. She convinces her brother to challenge another breeder to a winner-take-all wager in a special race. No one knows that horse better than Madeleine does, and following the rules is not her strong suit, so she schemes to secretly jockey the horse in that race. Then the Duke of Nobleham gets in the way and ruins her one chance of keeping the stallion.

He needs a foundation stallion for his line of race horses.

Nobleham's fed up with Polite Society, and if he didn't fear for Madeleine's safety, he'd love to see if she could win. But if she does, the horse won't be on the market and he needs it to establish his horse farm in Virginia. As he gets to know her, his admiration for Madeleine turns into something more, and she is falling in love with him, too.

Yet loving him means moving to Virginia and leaving her family behind, a thought she can't bear, but life without Nobleham would be bleak. How can she choose between the two?