I travel. Sometimes I travel by boat, plane, or automobile. Sometimes I travel by book. This week I rambled through Bath with Ann Gracie. I’ve been here before, at least in books. I’m fascinated by the Roman Baths as I am all things Roman. I’ve taken the waters with elderly relatives and a dutiful companion. I’ve sympathized with the young man she admired, one who longs to be a physician over the objections of his aristocratic family in my “Lord Edmund’s Dilemma” (A Holiday in Bath) I shared the affection in which the workers at Marsh Candleworks held their owner, Douglas Marsh, an army veteran doing his best to keep them all employed in my “Candles in the Dark” (Valentines from Bath). I rather liked the bakery he patronized and his modest home. I waltzed with him and his true love in the candlelit Assembly Rooms, too. I’ve wandered over the Pulteney Bridge a few times to nearby estates in books by several authors. From the royal crescent to the commercial streets I’ve enjoyed every bit of the place.
This week however, I went to take the waters with Major Calbourne Rutherford’s elderly aunt, and wandered the streets at night when he searched for his impulsive younger sisters. I was quite taken with the facility and various employees of the girls’ school they formerly attended. i was drawn to it as much as I was to the school in Bath where Anna Snow taught in Mary Balogh’s . This week, however, I was particularly drawn to the Rutherford girl’s teacher, Miss Emmaline Westwood. She can handle those girls and I wasn’t surprised when he married her, abrupt though it was.
About the Book: Marry in Haste by Anne Gracie
Major Calbourne Rutherford returns to England on the trail of an assassin, only to find he’s become Lord Ashendon, with the responsibility for vast estates and dependent relatives. Cal can command the toughest of men, but his wild half-sisters are quite another matter. They might just be his undoing.
When he discovers that Miss Emmaline Westwood, the girls’ former teacher, guides them with ease, Cal offers her a marriage of convenience. But strong-minded and independent Emm is neither as compliant nor as proper as he expected, and Cal finds himself most inconveniently seduced by his convenient wife.
Emm knows they didn’t marry for love, yet beneath her husband’s austere facade, she catches glimpses of a man who takes her breath away. As pride, duty and passion clash, will these two stubborn hearts find more than they ever dreamed of?