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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WOW! Tortured hero, strong, determined heroine, June 6, 2004
Emily, Lady Harland, has lost two brothers and a husband to the war against Napoleon. Her surviving brother is paralysed, an invalid. Her father, a general, is still involved in the war effort although they're now back in London. So when she hears the idle, indolent and supercilious Duke of Avon mocking the English troops and suggesting that Napoleon should have been allowed to run free on the Continent, she is furious - and lets him know her views in no uncertain terms. And when he informs her that the severe limp she sees him walk with is only an affectation, she is incensed and dismisses him as a worthless fop. Only, once he leaves, she notices that there is blood on the handrail where he had walked...Dominic Maitland, Duke of Avon, is indeed a cripple, and has been since birth. He is also up to his neck in the war effort himself behind the scenes: he decodes encrypted messages and is in charge of a network of couriers. The night Emily meets him, he has just come from a rendezvous with a courier which went badly wrong, and he was nearly killed. His business with her father is to establish the source of a leak in the war office, for which her father is responsible. Avon has long decided never to marry, and never to fall in love. After all, who could love a cripple like him? And anyway, his father always told him that his crippled leg was hereditary - so why have children only to pass that on to the next generation? Furthermore, he detests feeling pitied, so he avoids friendship - the person he is closest to is Moss, his valet, who is more like a father to him than his own father was. However, he is deeply attracted to Emily, and she to him. He tries to scare her off by indicating that all he wants from her is sex - but she refuses to be completely scared off. And when Avon starts spending a lot of time at her home, working with Devon, her brother, they are thrown more into each other's company - and then when Emily and her father save Avon's life and he has to stay with them in order to recuperate, feelings grow even stronger and he finds it impossible to deny what he really feels for her. But he still won't marry her... and then things get worse when, under severe stress and worry, Emily says something unforgivable to him about his limp. Can these two ever forgive each other and find love? This is an amazing, gripping and so well-written book - Gayle Wilson is a real find! I would put this on a par with the better long Mary Baloghs, and I'm now off to get hold of as many other Gayle Wilsons as I can. Excellent! wmr-uk
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by Gayle Wilson
by Gayle Wilson
by Gayle Wilson
by Emma Jensen
