The Corn Maiden

Nell Somersham’s life is complicated by the curious terms of her late father’s will. She cannot inherit his Suffolk or Scottish estates until she turns twenty-five—unless she secures permission to marry from one of her two guardians. One guardian—her stepmother—is determined to marry the strong-willed girl to her own lover, the fortune-hunting Sir James Fanshawe. The other guardian – and unknown to Nell - is her father's cousin who oversees the management of her Scottish estates. Desperate to escape her stepmother’s plans, Nell secures a marriage proposal from a dull-witted soldier, then flees to Scotland to seek her guardian’s consent.In Scotland, Nell is greeted by his steward, the ill-tempered, irresistible Rorie Moidart, who makes no secret of the fact that he believes his master was cheated out of the Scottish estates. As Nell finds her passion for Moidart increasing, she is horrified when he opens her eyes to the poverty of the lands and to the brutality of English landowners who are clearing the hills of farming families and shipping them abroad to the Americas. Nell realises that she has fallen into a web of deceit as complex and calculating as any of her stepmother’s plots. Rorie Moidart may break her heart—if she can’t secure his first.Whether she is dancing a quadrille with the Prince Regent or stepping through a boisterous highland reel, Nell needs all her wit and spirit to save herself from the schemes of the predatory men who surround her.