The Bridegroom

Award-winning author Joan Johnston concludes her Captive Hearts series with another winner, The Bridegroom. Wrongfully accused and deported to an Australian penal colony, Clay Bannister, Earl of Carlisle, vows revenge on the men responsible for his suffering: Cedric Ambleside, who framed him, and Alastair Wharton, the Duke of Blackthorne, who believed the trumped-up evidence and had Carlisle charged. After escaping the convict ship and making his fortune at sea, Carlisle returns to Regency London 11 years later to find his name cleared by Blackthorne, the same man who accused him. However, even the return of his title and his estates in England and Scotland cannot make Carlisle forget the loss of his wife and unborn son during his imprisonment--or the men who put him in prison. Unable to relinquish the darkness of his past, Carlisle woos Blackthorne's beautiful, headstrong daughter Regina, then presses her into marriage with the intent of abandoning her once she produces an heir. But the recalcitrant Reggie has in mind something else entirely. Carlisle finds his revenge difficult to exact when the instrument of that vengeance, his lovely new wife, refuses to cooperate. Reggie is determined that she will have both a loving husband and her father in her life, even if it kills her. And it might. Cedric Ambleside, embittered and hunted, will stop at nothing to keep Carlisle from finding him, even if it means murdering Reggie and once again framing Carlisle for the crime. As the threats to Reggie's well-being mount, Carlisle finds himself unable to contemplate his life without her, but it may be too late. --Alison Trinkle