The Reluctant Bride

the long version

Lovely young Emmeline Grantley received her first taste of tyranny when her widowed mother wed the loathsome Lord Barrow. He made Emmeline's life a nightmare with his harsh discipline and odious advances. It seemed a heavenly deliverance when the handsome Lord Charles Carruthers asked for Emmeline's hand in marriage. But once Emmeline was his bride, and alone with him on his country estate, he began to exercise his power over her -- a power that Emmeline could not resist, hard as she tried. Emmeline now knew that all men were the same -- and she vowed never to be her husband's slave . . . even if breaking the tie that bound her to him might break her heart as well . .