Lord of the Lost by Arietta Richmond

Miss Ella Radcliffe’s family is in desperate straights. And rather than marry the man her mother has chosen, she looks for work – hoping that her love of writing might help her save the family from starvation. When a mysterious offer of employment turns out to have come from her literary hero, she begins to hope that things may improve. But it soon becomes obvious that nothing is quite as it seems…
Mr Oscar Harman is a celebrated author – with a problem. More than one problem, in fact. First, his inspiration has deserted him, and second, the spectre of old wrongs haunts him – rather literally. If he is ever to finish another book, he needs help – so he decides to hire a secretary. When the applicant for the job turns out to be a woman – and a woman who seems like the perfect composite of every heroine he has ever written, everything changes.
The Duke of Shadowbrook has lived a double life for many years now, avoiding the public eye, and resenting the requirements of the title. Now, his great aunt has forced him to see that his double life is a trap. But how does one escape a trap of one’s own making?

With Ella’s influence, for the first time in ten years, Oscar begins to consider changing – taking up responsibilities he has left abandoned, and mending long broken friendships. As the attraction between them blooms, the pressures of the past and the culmination of a vengeance declared bring them to the brink of disaster.