Lady Eliza Chalmers was the most divinely dazzling, wickedly witty beauty in London She was also as spoiled and arrogant a young woman as ever dashed suitors hopes and drove a father to take desperate action. Thus it was that Eliza found herself in a coach going to the remote north of England, where she was to consider the Earl of Darrian as her husband. She expected the worst, but was not prepared for how dismal the worst could be. The Earls home was no castle but a bleak house that made a prison seem pretty. That the Earl himself might be a lord was cold comfort, for he certainly was no gentleman. First he striped her for her pride. Then he stripped her of her priviege. And with her defenses shattered and her heart playing strange tricks, Eliza had to wonder if he meant to strip her of her virtue as well.
Worth reading--once. Cute but somewhat misogynistic in its echoes of Taming of the Shrew.
He was a soldier of war, she a spoiled brat. When Eliza insults Drake Darrin's home and county, (she is unaware that he has heard her), he plans his revenge. He drags her to his "castle" which is a rundown house and has all the servants sent away so she has to learn to "do for herself". She is stuck there by snowstorm for several days. Though she finds him uncouth, he is her only source of entertainment, and they begin a dialoge that turns to passion. They are blissfully happy for 3 nights, until he offers for her and she rejects him. He leaves her alone, and she returns to London. He then follows to try to win her hand.
