The Scottish Marriage — Karen Lynn

A star-crossed encounter on a stormy Scottish night brings a kidnapped orphan to a rendezvous with destiny. She is a helpless captive. He is her cocksure rescuer. Together they are snared by the underhanded ways of Scottish courtship. Theirs is a marriage in name only, a protective union that soon blooms and greens into unexpected passion. She rides Lord Maplethorpe's coattails into the most exclusive chambers of London high society, where she rapidly becomes the toast --- and envy --- of the beautiful and well-connected. She has his hand but wants his heart. he has her respect but wants his freedom. When Ada is ambushed by a jilted expatriate and publicly scorned by a vindictive temptress, their bond suddenly grows straonger. More than ever, she needs the reassurance of his strong arms holding her with the pulse and rapture of real love. Lord Maplethorpe, embroiled in a caldron of international duty, hides his deep yearning for the tenderness and comfort of a woman's love behind a veil of noble restraint. Though he did not marry the woman he loved, he now, inexorably, was falling in love with the woman he married. For them, passing over the threshold of marriage was easy. Crossing the threshold of love, however, was shaping up as a struggle infinitely more challenging and costly. Spiced with the flavor of the Scottish/British milieu, this exciting page-turner captures the sorrows and triumphs of hard-won love during the wicked days of the Regency.