Red Petals — Debra Hamilton

Jack Darlington was too handsome, too self-assured, too splendid by half for a plain, twenty-six-year-old diplomat's daughter from Edinburgh. Rosaline's one chance at love had been cruelly stolen, and now she had little choice but to be married off to this charming opportunist who would use her to enhance his career...and his pleasures.

The raffish Foreign Office operative wanted little from his prim, level-headed bride, except a gentleman's home and a gentleman's way of life. Rosaline's good breeding ensured her ability to take his disorderly house and two ungovernable boys in hand. In return, he offered a reprieve from spinsterhood. Many marriages were made of less.

From the wild, forbidding shores of Scotland's Orkney Islands, to the warm, mysterious beauty of golden Egypt, Rosaline blossoms as a diplomat's wife and hostess as she forges a tentative bond with a man who possesses secrets she cannot fathom and a past that shadows their lives. But when danger and intrigue bring them closer together; a woman who refused to dream of the impossible will allow her heart a second chance at love...