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Uyir Thotta Urave- UmaBalakumaran
by Uma balakumar..
If she was trembling with the fragility of new spring budsin the wind, then it was because of her shock
If she felt weak and her heart was pounding with dangerous speed, then it was because of theweight of her gown. If she couldn’t move, then it was because of the arms that imprisonedher.It was because her heart was racing so fast that his own had started to pound heavily, Maxtold himself. It was because the walls either side of the steps enclosed them that he was soconscious of the scent of her hair and her skin. It was because he was a man and she was awoman that his body was flooded with an unwanted surge of physical arousal that had himtightening his hold on her.Extreme danger and extreme desire went hand in hand, and produced between them anextreme pleasure that was an almost unbearable delight. A delight that was merely a foretasteof what the night that lay before them would hold.Dear Reader,Harlequin Presents
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Penny JordanA BRIDE FOR HIS MAJESTY’S PLEASURE
All about the author…Penny JordanPENNY JORDAN has been writing for more than twenty-five years and has an outstandingrecord: over 165 novels published, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family,To Love, Honour and Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday
Times and New York Times bestseller lists. She says she hopes to go on writing until she has passed the 200 mark, and maybe even the 250 mark.Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire, U.K., and spent her childhood there, as ateenager she moved to Cheshire, where she continues to reside. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town, on which she based her CRIGHTONS books.She lives with a large hairy German shepherd dog—Sheba—and an equally hairy Birman cat —Posh—both of whom assist her with her writing. Posh sits on the newspapers andmagazines that Penny reads to provide her with ideas she can adapt for her fictional books,and Sheba demands the long walks that help Penny to free up the mental creative process.Penny is a member and supporter of both the Romantic Novelists’ Association and theRomance Writers of America—two organizations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PROLOGUE
‘AND if I refuse to marry you?’ Although she did her best not to allow her feelings to show,she was conscious of the fact that her voice trembled slightly.Max looked at her.‘I think you already know the answer to your own question.’The dying sun streaming in through the tower window warmed the darkness of her hair andrevealed the classical beauty of her facial bone structure, before stroking golden fingers alongthe exposed column of her throat.A twenty-first-century woman, caught in an ancient and powerful trap of savagery andcustom, Max acknowledged wryly, if only to himself.The intensity of the powerful and unwanted emotional and physical reaction that punchedthrough him caught him off guard. It was a dangerous mix of sympathy and desire, neither of
which he should be feeling. But most especially not the desire. Immediately Max turned awayfrom her—like a schoolboy desperate to conceal the over-enthusiastic and inappropriatereaction of his developing maleness, he derided himself. But he was not a schoolboy, andfurthermore he was perfectly capable of controlling both his emotions and his physical desire.So his own body had momentarily caught him off guard? It would not happen again.What he was doing wasn’t something he wanted to do, nor was it in any way for his own benefit. It was a duty, and she was the doorway via which he could access what he needed tohelp those who needed it so desperately. It was a loathsome situation; either he sacrificed her,and in a sense himself, or he risked sacrificing his people. He did not have the luxury of indulging in personal and private emotional needs. His duty now obliged him to channel histhoughts and feelings towards those to whom he had given his commitment when he hadaccepted the crown and become the ruling Prince of Fortenegro. His people. This woman’s people.He turned back towards her. So much was at stake; the future of a whole country lay in thiswoman’s hands. He would have preferred to be honest with her—but how could he, given her family background? She was a rich man’s grandchild. Her grandfather a man, he knew now,who had alternated between both over-indulging his grandchildren and over-controlling them —to the extent that they had become adept at deceit and were motivated only by self interest.Ionanthe looked at the man facing her—a man who represented so much that she hated.‘You mean that I’ll be thrown to the wolves, so to speak? In the form of the people? Forcedto pay my family’s debt of honour to you?’When he gave no reply she laughed bitterly.‘And you dare to call yourself civilized?’‘I own neither the crime nor its punishment. I am as impotent in this situation as you areyourself,’ Max defended himself caustically.Impotent. It was a deliberately telling choice of word, surely, given that he had just told her that she must marry him and give him a son as recompense for her sister’s crimes againsthim. Or be handed over to the people to be tried by a feudal form of justice that was no justice at all.As he waited for her response Max thought back over the events that had led them both tothis unwanted impasse.
CHAPTER ONE
‘THERE must be vengeance, Highness.’ The courtier was emphatic and determined as headdressed Max.The Count no doubt considered him ill fitted for his role of ruler of the island of Fortenegro —the black fort, so named originally because of the sheer dark cliffs that protected themainland facing side of the island.‘Justice must be seen to be done,’ Count Petronius continued forcefully.The Count, like most of the courtiers, was in his late sixties. Fortenegro’s society was fiercely patriarchal, and its laws harsh and even cruel, reflecting its refusal to move with the times. Arefusal which Max fully intended to change. The only reason he had not flatly refused to stepinto his late cousin’s shoes and become the new ruler of the principality was because of hisdetermination to do what he knew his late father had longed to do—and that was to bringFortenegro, and more importantly its people, out of the Dark Ages and into the light of thetwenty-first century. That, though, was going to take time and patience, and first he must winthe respect of his people and, just as importantly, their trust.
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A Bride for His Majesty s Pleasure
BY Penny Jorden...
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| Upload Date: | 11/30/2009 |
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