Dark Fires - A Novel

Informationen zum Autor Brenda Joyce is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of forty-nine novels and five novellas. There are more than fourteen million copies of her novels in print and she is published in more than a dozen countries. A native New Yorker, she now lives in southern Arizona with her son, dogs, and numerous Arabian and half-Arabian reining horses. Brenda divides her time between her twin passions: writing powerful love stories and her quest to become a nationally ranked top-ten equestrian. Klappentext "He murdered his wife!" they whispered. Nicholas Bragg! Earl of Dragmore! was notorious--even after a British court found him innocent. Now they called him Lord of Darkness! as much for his rakish good looks as for his black reputation. She was an innocent at passion's gate. Arriving uninvited at the massive stone manor! she shivered with terror--and excitement. Jane Barclay was his ward. Her sunny! innocent nature was in violent contrast to his hot temper. He was wild! explosive! an uncouth Texas rakehell--exactly the wrong kind of man for an English beauty to tame. Together they would be swept into the dark storm of their passionate destiny...and wild! all-consuming love. He wasn’t in a particularly good mood.   But then again, the Earl of Dragmore wasn’t particularly well-known for his good moods.   Nicholas Bragg, Lord Shelton, stood staring out of the French doors his wife had insisted on, a letter dangling loosely from his hand. The vista that greeted him was spectacular: endless lawns of emerald green carefully, faithfully manicured, thick beds of pink roses, a long, curving graveled drive, and beyond, sweeping green hills framed by oaks in the last of summer’s lushness. The earl was not soothed. His hard mouth was twisted into an even harder line; the tendons in his powerful brown hand tightened, and he crushed the letter. “Damn!”   The word was an explosion, and simultaneously he jettisoned the letter in one violent movement.   He began pacing.   The earl was clad, as usual, in soft, form-fitting breeches, high black boots, a fine cotton shirt carelessly tucked in and open to midchest, ignoring the dictates of Victorian decorum. As he moved, it became evident that a barely restrained power coursed through his muscles, like that of a cougar or a panther. He paused to stare down at the crumpled letter on the floor, feeling the childish urge to crush it under his heel. But that would not make the letter go away. Nor would it make her go away.   A ward.   He cursed his wife, now dead, with no remorse.   The earl strode to the windows, raking a hand through impossibly thick and impossibly black hair—so black it shone blue in the sunlight. He had too much to do to play nursemaid to some ward, for God’s sake. He didn’t need this complication in his carefully constructed life. The harvest was about to begin and he was on his way to Newmarket to look over some breeder bulls. His stallion, No Regrets, was racing Sunday next, and by damn if he’d miss that. He’d intended to spend the following fortnight in London, assuming everything went smoothly on his estates until then. Damn.   How the hell old was she?   The earl savagely retrieved the letter, tearing it as he unfolded it. His face was nearly expressionless except for the blazing anger in his gray eyes, so pale as to appear silver at times, all the paler because of the dark, coppery cast to his bronzed skin. She was seventeen. Seventeen, for God’s sake, and according to her aunt Matilda, a handful of trouble—which was why they were coming to him.   The earl cursed. “I’ll put her in with Chad,” he decided grimly. “She can be of some use in the nursery.” He briefly questioned the wisdom of this, a seventeen-year-old girl with his five-year-old son, then dismissed the issue.   His wife had bee...

Product details

• Authors: Brenda Joyce
• Publisher: Dell Publishing Inc.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 22.01.2002
• EAN: 9780440614173
• ISBN: 978-0-440-61417-3
• No. of pages: 396
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 216 mm x 25 mm
• Series: The Bragg Saga; The Bragg Saga
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature