Banning Talbot, Marquess of Daventry and Society's favorite bachelor, is accustomed to having his every whim obeyed--until he finds himself the reluctant guardian of Prudence MacAfee, the outspoken, golden-haired hoyden laughably nicknamed Angel. Now it's Banning's duty to introduce this deliciously unconventional creature to the ton's most eligible suitors. But his heart has an agenda all its own....
October 2, 1995
On leave from military duty, Banning Talbot, Marquess of Daventry, becomes fast friends with Colonel Henry MacAfee. While drinking on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, Henry asks Banning to promise that he will become guardian to his little sister, Angel, should anything happen to him. Banning reluctantly agrees and, the very next day, Banning is told that Henry was killed in action. Afer a year of absentee guardianship, Banning decides it's time to meet his ward, to bring her to London in order that his sister, Lady Wendover, might help her prepare for her debut. Arriving at the MacAfee farm, Banning finds that his ward is a full-grown woman-a woman in the process of delivering a foal and who lives with a miserly eccentric of a grandfather. Can Lady Wendover make Angel into a proper lady before her debut? Can Angel learn to tame both her tongue and her passions? Will Banning be able to make love to Angel before he loses his sanity? The answers to these questions are laid out before the reader like well-set jewels in Michaels's (The Secrets of the Heart) frolicsome romance. In addition to a host of loyal retainers who harbor secret vices, the two secondary characters who play Banning's friends are simply hilarious.