The Condemned Covenant

THE CONDEMNED COVENANT She needs a husband who will be dead by morning. He needs one final chance to redeem his name. Neither expects the bargain to survive the gallows. Lady Christabel Sterling-Montague is running out of time. An heiress trapped by the laws of Regency England, Christabel stands to lose her freedom, her fortune, and perhaps even her ailing sister to the ambitions of her predatory cousin, Lord Julian Sterling. If she cannot escape his reach, everything her family left behind may become his. So Christabel devises a desperate solution. She goes to Newgate Prison and offers marriage to Captain Ruark Vance, a disgraced naval officer condemned to die for treason and mutiny. The bargain is brutally simple: marry her before his execution, secure his family's future, and leave Christabel a widow with the independence she desperately needs. No love. No promises. No future. But the gallows are only the beginning. Soon Christabel is pulled into a dangerous world of buried secrets, political betrayal and a conspiracy reaching from storm-lashed ships to the corridors of power. At its heart waits the shadowy Order of the Iron Compass and a truth capable of destroying far more than one family's legacy. And Ruark Vance may not be the man history has condemned him to be. As enemies close in and their carefully constructed arrangement becomes something neither intended, Christabel must decide how much she is willing to risk for the truth... and whether the freedom she fought so fiercely to possess can coexist with a love she never expected to choose. From the darkness of Newgate to the cliffs of Cornwall, from perilous seas to Britain's courts of justice, The Condemned Covenant is a sweeping Regency Gothic romance of dangerous bargains, treason, vengeance, sacrifice and two people discovering that love freely chosen can be more powerful than any contract imposed upon them. [THE_CONDEM...ENANT. docx | Word] Perfect for readers who love: marriage-of-convenience historical romance Gothic atmosphere and dangerous secrets strong, fiercely independent heroines condemned and tortured heroes political and legal intrigue naval adventure romantic suspense sweeping, high-stakes historical love stories