 THE
WAY
OF THE HEART
Zebra Books
Jane
Fitzsimmons is smart, a woman who loves nothing more than to pass
her time
at her father’s side, helping him
to operate their family’s shipbuilding business. She was never
interested in female pursuits, and, when she looks to the future, she
sees herself busily engaged in commerce, helping the Fitzsimmons’ Shipworks
to grow and prosper.
Her father has other ideas. He secretly settles a large dowry on her
and arranges with a solicitor to find her five suitable marriage candidates,
then ships her off to London, insisting she marry whichever one she
chooses.
She soon learns that her suitors all have one thing in common: they
are all flat broke. However, only one of them stirs her blood and ignites
her passions, but, to her dismay, she discovers that he is all despicable
things rolled into one.
Phillip
Wessington, Earl of Rosewood, is a gambler, a drunk, a ladies’ man
who has spent his life playing and loafing. He’s also a pauper,
but he has no idea how to live like a poor man, so he continues
to spend and frolic.
When
his solicitor provides him with a chance to fix his financial situation
-- by marrying
Jane, a
merchant’s daughter -- he initially
scoffs at the idea, but as his circumstances go from bad to worse,
he decides to risk it.
Jane
agrees to the marriage. But her new husband has no intention of altering
his lifestyle
simply because
he’s taken a bride,
and, shortly after they’re wed, she’s leaves him in disgust.
Phillip
initially thinks himself to be the luckiest man in the kingdom when
Jane departs. He has
all
his wife’s glorious money without
the bother of a wife, so why does he feel so miserable with her gone?
She has an irritating way of making a man think about duty, and family
and responsibility, and he can’t help realizing that his
life has taken a despicable turn when he is such a wretched cad
that his
own wife refuses to live with him.
Determined
to win Jane’s affection, to mend the rift he’s
caused in their hasty union, he decides to change his habits and
behavior in order to convince her to give him another chance.
Can Phillip become a new man? Can he woo Jane and repair their battered
relationship? Will Jane let him? Does she really want him back? Is
he worth having? Worth keeping?
Join
Jane as she struggles through all the ways the heart can lead a woman
to love the most
unlikely character.
Will she be
able to help
Phillip find the sense of love and family he’s been searching
for all his life?
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