Georgian (Balogh)

From New York Times bestselling legend Mary Balogh-and the beloved author of Longing, Silent Melody, and Beyond the Sunrise-comes a ravishing novel of passion and duty, love and menace.... Life has taught Lucas Kendrick, Duke of Harndon, that a heart is a decided liability. Betrayed by his elder brother, rejected by his fiancé, banished by his father, and shunned by his mother, Luke fled to Paris, where he became the most sought-after bachelor in fashionable society. Ten years later, fate has brought him back home to England as head of the family who rejected him. Unwilling as he is to be involved with them, he must assume responsibility for his younger siblings, the family estate he once loved-and the succession. He faces the prospect of marrying with the greatest reluctance-until he sees beguiling Lady Anna Marlowe across a ballroom one night. Anna, far from being the bright-eyed innocent Luke takes her for, is no more a stranger to the shadows of a painful past than he is. But for her, marriage cannot so easily solve what is wrong in her life-not when a tormentor stalks her to the very doors of Bowden Abbey, where Luke and Anna must learn to trust in each other or risk any chance they may have for a happy future.

Lady Emily Marlowe is beautiful, independent, and unspoiled. Deaf since childhood, she appreciates her family's efforts to nurture her spirit, but the man they've chosen for her betrothal can never fulfill her. The only one Emily has ever desired is bold and reckless Lord Ashley Kendrick. Her childhood amour inspired her fantasies and vowed never to forget her-even as he left her for a new life in India and a new love. Seven years and countless dreams later, Ashley has returned a desolate widower to Bowden Abbey and, true to his promise, to Emily. Yet his heedless proposal of marriage has left her unexpectedly conflicted. Though the heat of passion still burns, Emily fears that it's only a sense of duty-not love-that has brought him to bended knee. And what is she to make of those seven lost years clouded in secrets too dark for Ashley to share? For Emily, her greatest and only love now becomes one worth fighting for, one of startling revelations and second chances, and one, like a melody, too beautiful for words...