Another enticing read from Lorraine Heath.
Having spent his entire life witnessing the pain love has caused his father, Viscount Locksley knows that he will never allow himself to feel such deep emotion for any woman. So when his father announces that he is contractually bound to marry a woman who answered an advert he placed in the newspaper, Locke offers to save him from further heartache and from the fortune huntress his bride appears to be, by marrying her himself. After all, there's no chance he'll ever become emotionally attached to a woman who meant to take advantage of an old man, so his heart ought to be safe. What there is, however, right from the start, is a passion so overwhelming that Locke knows producing an heir will be no hardship at all.
Determined to save herself from a tragic life, Portia has fled from London with the intention of marrying the Marquess of Marsden - a man who supposedly went mad after the death of his wife thirty years earlier. He will offer Portia security in exchange for companionship with neither needing more from the other. But when she arrives at his estate, she encounters his son - a man intent on ruining her plans by marrying her himself. And since the terms of her contract with Marsden do not specify who she should marry, but only that she must, she is faced with no other option than to marry a man who will surely despise her if he ever discovers the truth about her past.
Once again Lorraine Heath made it possible to sympathize and root for characters who initially seemed cold and self serving. And just as with the previous book in this wonderful series, there was a moment when their happily ever after seemed impossible. I loved the way in which Heath resolved their conflict. She has proved yet again that she is an exceptional story teller.
