The Bengal Rubies — Lisa Bingham

Aloise Crawford's father had imprisoned her for years in a French academy before he ordered her back to George III's England for a scandalous reason: to auction her to any suitor who bid highest for her and her dowry of the fabulous Bengal Rubies. Even she didn't know those jewels had been stolen from the family of Slater McKendrick. And there had been other, darker crimes McKendrick could not forget. Now he waited on this lonely beach to abduct Crawford's daughter and get his revenge. But the girl surprised him by her courageous attempt to escape her father's scheme. As he pulled the wet, shivering beauty to her feet, he saw in her eyes a shattered soul that matched his own, and he felt a lightening stab of white-hot passion. What Aloise saw in Slater was her destiny -- the man who could destroy her or save her, the man she dared not trust and yet had already begun so desperately to love.