Mountain Laurel Author:Jude Deveraux Captain Ring Montgomery is handsome, a skilled rider, a crack shot, knowledgable about the western territories, popular with the men and their ladies - everything Colonel Harrison, commanding officer of Fort Breck, is not. Reason enough for the colonel to saddle Montgomery with a most peculiar assignment: to escort an opera singer into the gold... more » fields of the Colorado Territory so that she can sing for the miners. With a Civil War brewing, Ring finds the idea of nursemaidinng "The Singing Duchess" trivial and foolish. Neither does Madelyn, his charge, relish the thought of his protective presence. She has good reasons for coming west, and though Montgomery may be clever enough to discover she is not a European Duchess, she does not daire trust him with the whole truth...« less