"Sparks fly as a forced hand-fasting produces surprising repercussions for both parties."
Reviewed by Suan Wilson
Posted April 15, 2009
Romance Historical
Laird Carson Beal forces his stubborn niece Lizzie to hand-
fast with a stranger. He refuses to cede control over her
and allow Lizzie to marry a man from a neighboring clan.
Lizzie cannot fight her laird for he holds the debt over
her shambling home where she cares for her crippled sister.
Coerced into sharing her home with her new husband, Lizzie
goes to war making him miserable. A slight misunderstanding with the Prince of Wales
regarding his wife sends Jack Haines, Earl of Lambourne,
fleeing to Scotland. Jack runs smack into more trouble when
a Scottish laird captures him. Threatening to turn him over
to the prince's soldiers, Jack agrees to a hand-fasting for
a year and a day. Expecting a hag, Jack is surprised when a
beautiful hellion arrives, fighting all the way to the
altar. Held captive in Lizzie's home, Jack's famous charm does not
make a dent in her attitude. Their verbal sparring
escalates. Sparks fly and passion erupts leaving Jack
wanting to stay. However, Lizzie's irate fiancé wants Jack
gone. Unable to offer Lizzie any promises with the prospect
of hanging looming over him, Jack is left with difficult
choices. Ms. London lures readers into quickly turning the pages to
see how Jack escapes the prince's wrath and win his true
love. The quick pace and lively repartee makes it an
engaging read. Sneak peeks into Ms. London's upcoming
contemporary novel, as well as her next historical, are
added treats and make waiting for them difficult.
SUMMARY
On the run from the wrathful Prince of Wales, Jack Haines,
Earl of Lambourne, is taken prisoner by a Highland laird
who makes him an unusual offer: if Jack handfasts his
niece, then his life will be spared. The old Highland
custom -- a marriage lasting only a year and a day, unless
both partners agree to make it a lifelong vow -- sounds
preferable to Jack to being dragged to London in chains,
and when he meets lovely Lizzie Beal, his dilemma starts
to seem positively enjoyable. Until the hellion vents her
fury...on him! Detesting the scandalous match that will
end all her chances of making a respectable marriage,
Lizzie can't abide living intimately with a fugitive
nobleman bent on seducing her and then running off. But in
teaching her the pleasures of a wife's duties, Jack sparks
within them both a passion that will make him wish he
could stay with Lizzie for much longer than a year and a
day.
ExcerptChapter OneScotland, 1807 From his vantage point in the middle of a brambly thicket-
which, Jack noted gloomily, had torn his best buckskins-he
could just see the road through the branches. He'd ridden
hard the last hour, pushing his horse to stay a mile ahead
of them. He gulped down air as he watched the two men trot
by, their hats pulled low over their eyes, their greatcoats
draped over the rumps of their Highland ponies and wearing
scarves about their necks that were definitely plaid. Diah, they were Scots! The old man in Crieff had been
right-the prince's men had hired Scots bounty hunters to
help find him. Bloody, bloody hell. He'd put himself in quite a quagmire
this time, hadn't he? Jack waited until he was certain they'd passed and moved
down the road a piece before picking his way out of the
thicket, cursing beneath his breath when another thorn
caught his buckskins. He untethered his horse and tossed
the reins over the mare's neck and swung up onto the
saddle. And sat. Jack really didn't know where to go from here. He'd been
running from the prince's men for more than a month,
fleeing England the moment he'd learned he'd been accused
of adultery with the Princess of Wales, running deep into
the Highlands. Adultery. Jack snorted as he rubbed the mare's neck.
Imagine, taking the Princess of Wales to his bed! It was
preposterous to believe he'd do such a thing! Yet Jack
couldn't help the wry smile that curved his lips as he
spurred the mare up onto the road. He'd never taken the princess to his bed, to be sure-but he
was guilty of participating in more than one vulgar
activity at her residence. In spite of his innocence, when Jack was warned that men
accused of bedding the princess were being rounded up for
questioning and would likely face charges of high treason-a
hanging offense-he'd decided to decamp to his native
Scotland. Those sorts of accusations flung about in the
midst of a royal scandal rarely played out well for a Scot
in England, and Jack Haines, the Earl of Lambourne, who was
no stranger to moral transgressions and shocking behavior,
knew a bad scandal when he saw one. On the road again, he paused to look up at the tops of the
Scots pines that seemed to scrape a stretch of sky the
color of blue China silk and inhaled deeply. It was clean,
crisp air that swept down the glens and hills that made up
the Highland landscape...glens and hills that seemed
endless and exasperatingly uninhabited. Jack reined his horse north, in the opposite direction of
the bounty hunters. He had four, maybe five hours of
daylight left and would need to find a place to bed down
for the night. Diah, he dreaded the thought of another
night in a bloody cold barn. But a barn was a good sight
better than the frigid forest floor. The air was so still-he could hear the breath of his mount
above the clopping of her hooves. The only thing he could recall this far north was Castle
Beal, and that was several miles away across some
questionable terrain, a two-day hard ride from Lambourne
Castle, just south of here. He was trying to recall the
best route-it had been eleven years since he'd spent any
time in Scotland other than the obligatory annual fortnight
at Lambourne-when he heard the faint but unmistakable clop
clop of another horse's hooves on the road...or worse, a
pair of horses. Jack reined up and listened. Damn their eyes-the bounty
hunters had turned back. There wasn't a moment to spare.
Jack dug his spurs into his mare, but she was fatigued and
he spurred her too hard; he winced when she whinnied as
loud as if he'd stuck her with a hot poker and broke into a
run. The bounty hunters had surely heard it and would
realize they were on Jack's heels. Indeed, they had gained ground on him throughout the day in
spite of wretched terrain and the prime horseflesh he
rode. Christ Almighty, where had the prince found these
men? Jack sent the mare crashing into the woods and its thick
undergrowth, leaping recklessly over the trunk of a downed
tree. A deer path led off to the right; Jack reined her in
that direction. The mare careered up the path, splashed
through a running stream, but balked at a steep
embankment. Jack quickly wheeled her around, pointed her
toward the embankment again. "Move on, then-move!" he
urged her, bending low over her neck and digging his spurs
into her flanks. The horse gave it all she had; they crested the top of the
embankment-and she reared at the sight of two men on
horseback. Jack hung on and managed to yank her around
with the intention of going back down the embankment, but
saw the bounty hunters crashing through the stream and
heaving up behind him. He reined his horse tightly as the four men encircled him.
He quickly looked around for an escape, any escape, but saw
only a pair of shotguns leveled at him. The mare's spittle
was foaming and her breathing labored-she'd not sprint, and
even if she did, she'd not get far. Jack looked again at the shotguns leveled at him as his
heart began to pound in his chest. There was no out-he'd
been caught. "Mary queen of Scots," he uttered irritably
as he eyed the one with the largest gun. "I donna suppose
we might have a chat, then? I am a wealthy man." His answer was the cock of the gun's trigger. "All right, all right," he said, slowly lifting his
hands. "You have me, lads." And he braced himself as they
closed in, entirely uncertain if today would be his last.
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