Alexandra Lawrence was certainly well-born - but that was about the sum of her attractions. She was seventeen, and had a face and figure more suited to a cheeky boy than a young lady. The fact that she could shoot, fish and ride like a man was hardly likely to attract many suitors, and her relatives were no help either. Great-uncle Montague never drew a sober breath and her mama had long ago retreated into bad-tempered petulance. Alex was the only one who keep the impoverished and bizarre household together. She was, one would have said, the last person that Jordan Townsende, Duke of Hawthorne - cool, possessed of the devil's own charm, and utterly contemptuous of women - should ever have married.
And so the hilarious and passionate progress of their marriage began - a marriage beset with every possible complication the pair of them could devise. But Alex never gave up believing that one day something would happen - something wonderful.
