Can a wager to find a wife turn into a true love match?
Entered into a wager that he can wed within a week, Captain Alex Bancroft pursues the first pretty woman he meets: Miss Emma Washer. Their courtship proceeds at a furious pace, including a dalliance that might ruin them both. Before it can, Alex proposes and is stunned when Emma agrees to marry him. Alex desperately tries to keep word of the wager from his new wife, not knowing Emma has secrets of her own to keep.
As passion erupts between the newly wed pair, the circumstances of Emma’s past threaten to tear them asunder. Alex’s regiment is directed to sail to a place Emma dares not go.
She refuses to accompany him, leaving Alex with a devastating choice: leave England to fulfil duty to Queen and country or stay and revel in his newfound love for his wife?
As soon as they reached the flowered arbor, Emma ducked into its shadowy depths. Its coolness came as a welcomed surprise and the perfume of the overhanging blooms made her head spin with the heavy scent. Alex held the swing and she sank onto it gratefully. Between the heat without, the sudden coolness within, the intense sweetness of the flowers, and Alex’s presence, her head had begun to spin. She glanced up at him and patted the seat by her. “Will you sit beside me?”
“In a moment, perhaps.” He strode to the edge of the bower and peered down the path they’d just taken. His head moved back and forth as he scanned the garden, then apparently satisfied with what he saw, Alex turned back to her. “Good. It seems we are very much alone.”
Emma’s eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat as he dropped gracefully to one knee and took her hand.
“We have known one another for only a matter of days, Emma, but I believe you to be the loveliest woman of my acquaintance. Sweet, kind, beautiful…” He grinned. “And the tiniest bit naughty, making you the perfect woman for me.”
Gazing into his deep blue eyes staring so intently at her, Emma could scarcely breathe beyond little hitching gasps. Was this real? Was she about to hear the question she’d longed to answer ever since seeing him…was it only three days ago? Her hands trembled in his grip. Dear God, don’t let her faint.
She lives in Virginia with her family and a small menagerie of pets--including Olive, an almost silent cat, Earl Grey, a very curious bunny, and a Shar-pei mix named Frenchie.
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