Marguerite Balfour lived an enchanted life as the beloved daughter of her soft-spoken mother and her adored father, a dreamer who filled her young life with hope and wonder. Anything was possible in Marguerite’s life...until the day her father died while she was in her young teens and her mother all but retreated from life. Marguerite carried on, trying to live by the words her father taught her, until everything she’d believed in came crashing down when her mother whispered into her ear as she was dying. Now, Marguerite is a young woman out for revenge, and a year after her mother’s passing, she and her grandfather head to London for her come-out. At least that’s what her grandfather believes. Marguerite is there with exquisitely planned revenges on the five men she believes responsible for her parents’ deaths. Thomas Joseph Donovan is also in London. He is there on a mission from President Madison. He is to meet with and discuss strategies with a group of men who had put forth a plan to prevent what seems now to be an inevitable war with the young country. But everywhere he goes, it seems that Marguerite is there ahead of him. Beautiful, intelligent, and apparently conniving Marguerite Balfour. They each have their own secret agendas, they each have their own reasons, with one out to disgrace and destroy, the other out to decide if his country should become involved in the Englishmen’s plot. They each are very much in the other’s way, especially when their mutual attraction threatens to make Thomas suspicious of the men he has come to see. As one after the other, they appear to fall into disgrace, he comes to believe there can be only one person who could be pulling the strings, making the puppets dance to her tune...Marguerite. But why? Follow along as Marguerite’s well-laid plans unfold, as Donovan can only try to earn her trust, becoming more concerned for her safety with every passing day. Watch as two very different people learn to look not just with their eyes and minds, but to look again, this time with their hearts....
Author
Kasey Michaels is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 100 books (she doesn't count them). Kasey has received three coveted Starred Reviews from Publishers Weekly, two for the historical romances, THE SECRETS OF THE HEART and THE BUTLER DID IT, and a third for contemporary romance LOVE TO LOVE YOU BABY (that shows diversity, you see). She is a recipient of the RITA, a Waldenbooks and Bookrak Bestseller award, and many awards from Romantic Times magazine, including a Career Achievement award for her Regency era historical romances. She is an Honor Roll author in Romance Writers of America, Inc. (RWA) Kasey has appeared on the TODAY show, and was the subject of a Lifetime Cable TV show "A Better Way," in conjunction with Good Housekeeping magazine, a program devoted to women and how they have achieved career success in the midst of motherhood (short version: "with great difficulty"). A highly praised nonfiction book, written as Kathryn Seidick, "...OR YOU CAN LET HIM GO," details the story of Kasey and her family during the time of her eldest son's first kidney transplant. Kasey has written Regency romances, Regency historicals, category books including novellas and continuities and a few series "launch" books, and single title contemporaries. She has coped with time travel, ghosts, trilogies, the dark side, the very light side, and just about everything in between. Hers is also the twisted mind behind her ongoing Maggie Kelly mystery series starring a former romance writer turned historical mystery writer whose gorgeous hunk of a fictional hero shows up, live and in color, in her Manhattan living room – to melt her knees, to help her solve murders, and to leave the top off her toothpaste. And, says Kasey, she's just getting started! Series: * His Chariot Awaits * Lion On the Prowl * Crown Family * London Friends * Chandlers Request * The Trehan Brothers * Maggie Kelly Mystery * Romney Marsh * Sunshine Girls
