Helpful Score: 1
This is one of the best historical romances I have read. Has a tender love story that keeps you guessing. Rosilind and Jack marry, each loving another. As events turn thier previous loves return and complicatre the events.
This is a romance book but a little more in-depth plot than many. Jack Darlington is in love with his childhood sweetheart, but she has disappeared and marriage to spinster Rosaline, a plain, level-headed diplomat's daughter will further his career. Rosaline's love, an artist who had been painting her portrait, was booted from the house by her father, and marriage with Jack Darlington, a Foreign Office operative was his plan "just in case" Rosaline found herself with child. The story takes place between the rocky coasts of Scotland's Orkney Islands and the warm, mysterious beauty of Egypt, where Jack has been posted to try to forge a peace treaty, at least that's what he's been told . . . the reappearance of his former childhood friend and lover provides a twist and if I say much more you will not enjoy the story.
Jack Darlington was too handsome, too self-assured, too splendid by half for a plain, twenty-six-year-old diplomat's daughter from Edinburgh. Rosaline's one chance at love had been cruelly stolen, and now she had little choice but to be married off to this charming opportunist who would use her to enhance his career...and his pleasures.
The raffish Foreigh Office operateive wanted little from his prim, level-headed bride, except a gentleman's home and a gentleman's way of life. Rosaline's good breeding ensured her ability to take his disorderly house and two ungovernable boys in hand. In return, he offered a reprieve from spinsterhood. Many marriages were made of less.
From the wild forbidding shores of Scotland's Orkney Islands, to the warm, mysterious beauty of golden Egypt, Rosaline blossoms as a diplomat's wife and hostess as she forges a tentative bond with a man who possesses secrets she cannot fathom and a past that shadows their lives. But when danger and intrigue bring them closer together, a woman who refused to dream of the impossible will allow her heart a second chance at love...
The raffish Foreigh Office operateive wanted little from his prim, level-headed bride, except a gentleman's home and a gentleman's way of life. Rosaline's good breeding ensured her ability to take his disorderly house and two ungovernable boys in hand. In return, he offered a reprieve from spinsterhood. Many marriages were made of less.
From the wild forbidding shores of Scotland's Orkney Islands, to the warm, mysterious beauty of golden Egypt, Rosaline blossoms as a diplomat's wife and hostess as she forges a tentative bond with a man who possesses secrets she cannot fathom and a past that shadows their lives. But when danger and intrigue bring them closer together, a woman who refused to dream of the impossible will allow her heart a second chance at love...