"Beguiling the Beauty" by Sherry Thomas

Venetia Fitzhugh Townsend Easterbrook is a twice-widowed young woman known well in London for her great beauty.  She's also an amateur paleontologist, having discovered the fossils of a Cetiosaurus when she was 16.  Christian de Montfort, the Duke of Lexington, a naturalist and paleontologist, has been in obsessive love with her from a distance for many years but has never acted on it.  Rumors about her deceased husbands led him to believe the worst about her, and he says so during a lecture on evolution.  Unfortunately, Venetia was at the lecture, and, while not directly naming her, she is shocked that she's elicited such venom from a man she's never formally met.  Her revenge is unique and works to a point, but it also backfires.

The author made me emotionally invested in the characters early on, so it was difficult to read about their conflicts and purposefully hurtful actions, but that's what makes a good and memorable story.  296 pages.