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Zusatztext Everyone loves Mary Balogh! “One of the best!”— New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn "Balogh is today’s superstar heir to the marvelous legacy of Georgette Heyer! (except a lot steamier!)”— New York Times bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips "With her brilliant! beautiful and emotionally intense writing Mary Balogh sets the gold standard in historical romance."— New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz "When it comes to historical romance! Mary Balogh is one of my favorites!"— New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James Informationen zum Autor Mary Balogh grew up in Wales and now lives with her husband, Robert, in Saskatchewan, Canada. She has written more than one hundred historical novels and novellas, more than thirty of which have been New York Times bestsellers. They include the Bedwyn saga, the Simply quartet, the Huxtable quintet, the seven-part Survivors’ Club series, and the Westcott series. Klappentext In the fourth novel of New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh's Survivors' Club series, Flavian, Viscount Ponsonby, finds salvation in the love of a most unsuspecting woman... Flavian was devastated by his fiancée's desertion after his return home from the Napoleonic Wars. Now the woman who broke his heart is back-and everyone is eager to revive their engagement. Except Flavian, who, in a panic, runs straight into the arms of a most sensible yet enchanting young woman. Agnes Keeping has never been in love-and never wishes to be. But then she meets the charismatic Flavian, and suddenly Agnes falls so foolishly and so deeply that she agrees to his impetuous proposal of marriage. When Agnes discovers that the proposal is only to avenge his former love, she's determined to flee. But Flavian has no intention of letting his new bride go, especially now that he too has fallen so passionately and so unexpectedly in love.1 At the age of twenty-six, Agnes Keeping had never been in love or ever expected to be—or even wished to be. She rather chose to be in control of her own emotions and her own life, such as it was. At the age of eighteen she had chosen to marry William Keeping, a neighboring gentleman of sober address and steady habits and modest means, after he had very properly called upon her father to make his offer and had then made her a very civil marriage proposal in the presence of her father’s second wife. Agnes had been fond of her husband and comfortable with him for almost five years before he died of one of his frequent winter chills. She had mourned him with an empty sort of desolation for longer than the requisite year of wearing her black widow’s weeds and still sadly missed him. She had not been in love with him, however, or he with her. The very idea seemed absurd, suggestive as it was of a wild, unbridled sort of passion. She smiled at her image in the glass as she tried to imagine poor William in an unbridled passion, romantic or otherwise. But then her eyes focused upon herself, and it occurred to her that she had better admire her splendor now while she had the chance, for once she arrived at the ball, it would be instantly apparent that in reality she did not look very magnificent at all. She was wearing her green silk evening gown, which she loved despite the fact that it was far from new—indeed, she had had it when William was still alive—and had not been in the height of fashion even when it was. It was high waisted with a moderately low neckline and short puffy sleeves and was embroidered with silver thread about the hem and the edges of the sleeves. It was not shabby despite its age. One did not, after all, wear one’s best evening gown very often, unless one moved in far more elevated social circles than Agnes did. She had been living for several months now in a modest cot...
