The Rake's Redemption

Read The Rake's Redemption Storyline:

Judith Hampton had loved Thomas Stainford. Once. She’d loved him with the fervour and intensity that only a young girl in the throes of her first love can feel. Now four years later his return from the Peninsular War causes her only consternation, loathing and panic. Not because he’s disgraced for seducing his own sister in law; nor because he has been disinherited as heir by his father for facing his brother over the barrel of a duelling pistol; not even because his return threatens her betrothal to the man whose purse strings support her family. Judith hates Thomas for the bittersweet memory of the few short weeks when he ruined her and broke her heart before he left for the war in Spain. Much has altered since then. Judith hadn’t taken Sir Theodore Horsley’s suit seriously at first, the pomposity and bombastic manners of the nouveau baronet saw to that. But circumstances alter intent and as her brother gambles his way to perdition, Judith with the selflessness of the innocent comes to accept that marriage to Theodore was the solution. The Hamptons might be flush with lineage, but John’s gambling hasn’t left enough cash to sustain their estate and Judith is desperate to lift the burden of worry from her ailing father. So when Thomas’s scheming threatens her plans she turns her wrath on him, oblivious to the evil intent concealed in the heart of the wealthy Horsley.**