title: A Reluctant Courtship (The Daughters of Bainbridge House)
author:  Laurie Alice Eakes 
description: <b>A woman without a prospect. A man without a homeland. Can love give them a future?<BR></b><BR>Honore Bainbridge has been courted by two men, one of whom turned out to be a traitor, the other a murderer. Banished to her family's country estate, where she will hopefully stay out of trouble, she finally meets the man she is sure is exactly right for her: Lord Ashmoor. Tall, dark, and handsome--what more could a girl ask for? <BR><BR>But he too is under suspicion because of his American upbringing and accusations that he has helped French prisoners escape from Dartmoor Prison. If he's to keep out of a British prison himself and secure his place in British society, Lord Ashmoor needs a wife beyond reproach--something the vexingly beautiful Honore certainly is not. Though they find themselves drawn to each other, family obligations may conspire to keep them apart forever.<BR><BR>For the sake of her heart, Honore determines to prove Ashmoor's innocence--even if doing so risks her own life.<BR><BR>From the first sentence, award-winning author Laurie Alice Eakes thrusts you into high drama amid the rocky cliffs of Devonshire, England, and keeps you suspended there until the final page.<BR><BR><BR><b>Laurie Alice Eakes</b> is the author of <i>Lady in the Mist</i>, <i>Heart's Safe Passage</i>, <i>Choices of the Heart</i>, <i>A Necessary Deception</i>, and <i>A Flight of Fancy</i>, which won the October 2012 Clash of the Titles Award, voted on by readers. She won a National Readers Choice Award for Best Regency in 2007 for <i>Family Guardian</i>. Laurie Alice writes full-time from her home in Texas, where she lives with her husband and sundry dogs and cats. Visit www.lauriealiceeakes.com for more.
zlib_text: Chapter 1
  
  In the absence of a gavel, Hector MacLean seized a heavy glass ashtray and
  rattled it against the mahogany-topped bar.
  
  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Quiet at the back there, you
  Aussie riffraff. I feel the need to propose a toast. Over here, darling, over
  here.’ Beckoning Daisy towards him, he slung an arm round her waist. ‘And now
  would you all raise your glasses ... to my beautiful daughter.’
  
  ‘To your beautiful daughter,’ chorused everyone in the room, causing Daisy to
  roll her eyes.
  
  Honestly, did he have to be quite so embarrassing?
  
  ‘You missed a bit out,’ she told him. ‘What you actually meant to say was "To
  my beautiful, intelligent and staggeringly hard-working daughter, without whom
  this hotel would crumble and go out of business within a week."‘
  
  ‘All that. Absolutely. Goes without saying.’ Hector gestured expansively with
  his tumbler of Glenmorangie. ‘Everyone here already knows that. Just as they
  know you’re also stubborn, bossy and incredibly l