VALENTINE COUPLE # 11!

DEIRDRE & CALDER!


Deirdre is a beauty of another order entirely–the only thing her looks have ever gotten her is trouble from her social-climbing stepmother. The only thing Deirdre wants–the only thing she’s ever wanted!–is the Beast of Brookhaven for her very own!


THE DUKE NEXT DOOR

The Heiress Brides Bk 2


A marriage of convenience

The dangerously beautiful Deirdre Cantor is 
determined to inherit her grandfather’s vast fortune. 
All she needs is to marry a duke . . . and be the 
first granddaughter to walk down the aisle. 
So when brooding Calder Marbrook, the Marquis 
of Brookhaven and future Duke of of Brookmoor, 
is abandoned at the altar, Deirdre makes it her 
business to become his wife–in spite of the 
whispers about his past.

 

An inconvenient truth. . .

Soon Deirdre’s visions of a lavish existence with 
the handsome Calder are shattered when she 
learns his shocking secret. Feeling betrayed, 
Deirdre seeks veangeance by playing a perilous 
and seductive game of cat and mouse with her
husband that threatens to drive them both to the 
heights of passion. But at what cost? Calder is 
determined to keep his secret under 
lock and key–and to make his stunning wife 
his in every way that matters. Even if it means 
winning her heart all over again . . .

accent Quotes:

“What can Bradley come up with after The Liars Club 
and the Royal Four? The answer is a humorous romp of
 marriage mayhem that’s a love and laughter treat, 
tinged with heated sensuality and tenderness. This 
winning combination ensures Bradley’s Heiress Brides 
series will climb the bestseller charts.”
—Romantic Times Bookreviews

“Bradley tells an involved, sexy story. If you haven’t 
yet read a Bradley novel, let yourself be seduced by 
the mistress of the genre!”
Romantic Times BOOKreviews

accent Under the covers:

I love the Grimms’ tale of “The Summer and Winter 
Garden,” the story of Beauty and the Beast. A primary 
theme in this one is the conflict between marrying for 
love and marriage as a sort of bargain. In the fairytale, 
the father trades his daughter for his own life. In my 
version, the woman trades herself for the man of her 
dreams–but doesn’t know how to get herself back 
when things don’t turn out as planned! Deirdre does 
everything wrong because she’s been raised to use her 
beauty like a weapon, instead of following her heart.

Calder is the Beast (and the father of the Beastie–his 
outrageously misbehaved daughter, Meggie) not because 
he is cruel, but because he is cold and unwilling to 
compromise. His past is full of pain and regret because 
of willful women and he isn’t about to let Deirdre add 
to that. At the same time, Deirdre isn’t about to let the 
man she’s longed for since she was fifteen shelve her
 like an unwanted doll.

I love the battle between fire and ice. There is nothing 
more fun than breaking down the walls of a solitary, 
self-contained man when armed with lust, laughter 
and love!

accent Portraits of our lovers:

DEIRDRE

Miss Deirdre Cantor is an exquisite beauty who has been well instructed in flirtation and manipulation by her 
conniving stepmother Lady Tessa. However, beneath her practiced airs there has survived a passionate, 
generous soul—who has been jonesing for the somber Marquis of Brookhaven since she first saw him when she was fifteen years old. Now her chance has come. 

When her cousin jilts him on their wedding day, Deirdre steps in and proposes a cold, practical arrangement—a marriage that will benefit them both. It isn’t until Calder surprises her with his horrid child 
Meggie and threats of dire consequences if Deirdre cannot tame the wild girl that Deirdre realizes that she will need much more than 
her beauty alone to tame the Beast of Brookhaven!

CALDER

Calder Marbrook, Marquis of Brookhaven, aka the Beast of Brookhaven, can’t seem to keep a wife. His first wife despised him and fled to her death, which still shadows his reputation. His second bride jilted him at the altar, flying into the arms of his own brother rather than wed him. When lovely Deirdre proposes, Calder is so surprised that he accepts. (He never stood a chance against Deirdre’s twin weapons of mass 
distraction!) Then again, why not marry her? Calder wants a peaceful, ordered existence and complete control over it. Gently bred (and smokin’ hot) Deirdre is mild-mannered and obedient—or is she? Calder is about to realize that clashing wills and lonely hearts 
do not a perfectly uneventful marriage make!

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!