Summary
A man's past doesn't have to map his fate, especially when a woman holds the key to his destiny in this timeless novel by New York Times bestselling author and legend in historical romance Mary Jo Putney . . .
Disinherited and disgraced, Reginald Davenport's prospects cried for a dire end. But fate has given him one last chance at redemption - by taking his rightful place as the heir of Strickland, his lost ancestral estate. Davenport knows his way around women, yet nothing prepares him for his shocking encounter with Lady Alys Weston.
Masquerading as a man in order to obtain a position as estate manager of Strickland, Alys fled a world filled with mistrust and betrayal. She was finished with men - until Strickland's restored owner awakens a passion she thought she would never feel. A passion that will doom or save them both . . . if only they can overcome their pasts . . .
'An enduring classic...a towering landmark in romantic fiction that is quite simply the very best of the best.' Romantic Times
Romance writer Mary Jo Putney was born in New York and graduated from Syracuse University with degrees in English literature and Industrial design. She served as the art editor of The New Internationalist magazine in London and worked as a designer in California before settling in Baltimore, Maryland in 1980 to run her own freelance graphic design business Her first novel was a traditional Regency romance, which sold in one week. Signet liked the novel so much that it offered Putney a three-book contract. In 1987 that first novel, The Diabolical Baron, was published. Since then, she has published more than twenty-nine books. Her books have been ranked on the national bestseller lists of the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly. Most of her books have been historical romance. She has also begun writing fantasy romance and romantic fantasy. Putney has won the Romance Writers of America RITA Award twice, for Dancing on the Wind and The Rake and the Reformer and has been a RITA finalist nine times. She is on the Romance Writers of America Honor Roll for bestselling authors, and has been awarded two Romantic Times Career Achievement Awards and four Golden Leaf Awards. Her titles include: Dark Mirror, Dark Passage, No Longer a Gentleman, Never Less than a Lady, and Nowhere Near Respectable.
(Bowker Author Biography)