"This Regency is a Must Read!"

Balthazar Wycherley, Earl of Braven, also known as Brave has been feeling guilty for a very long time. Years before he'd fallen in love with the sister of one of his best friends but she didn't return his love. When she came to him pregnant by another man, Brave rejected her and she promptly killed herself. Brave has been beating himself up over it ever since. Now he's on his way back home to Wyck's End when he hears a panicked scream. When he investigates, he finds a woman about to drown in the river. He saves her and finds out she's Rachel Ashton, the daughter of his father's best friend.

He takes Rachel to his home to give her one of his mother's gowns and to dry her off so she won't catch her death. What he doesn't know is that Rachel has secrets of her own. After her father died, her mother married a man who severely beat her. Now he's trying to sell Rachel off to the highest bidder. Rachel thinks if she can just hold off until she's 25 she'll be able to take her inheritance from her father and get her mother away from her cruel and sadistic stepfather, Sir Henry. When she finds out that her stepfather has frittered away her inheritance, she despairs of ever getting her mother away from him. When Rachel turns down a suitor's offer, her stepfather beats her and when Brave finds out he tells Sir Henry that he will buy Rachel's hand in marriage.

This is where the story gets very complicated but I didn't dare miss a word of this fabulously told tale. This is a tale of guilt and of forgiveness and compassion. This is also a tale of love, the forever kind. This is story that is not to be missed. I highly recommend this wonderfully told tale.

Reviewed by Kathy Boswell
Posted December 16, 2001

Summary

In order to free both herself and her mother from her cruel stepfather, Rachel Ashton accepts Lord Braven's proposal of marriage. While she risks much by becoming his wife, Rachel never imagined that it would be her heart and not her safety in the greatest peril.