A story of two people thrown together on a journey of discovery that defines what each most want of life, love, and family: a gentleman wishing to buy a fabulous horse and a lady set on protecting her family find common ground while pursuing a thief who upends both of their plans.
Nicholas Cynster rides up to Aisby Grange determined to secure the stallion known as the Barbarian for his family’s thoroughbred breeding stable, only to be turned away by the owner’s daughter. Nicholas retreats but is not about to be denied by any lady, no matter how startlingly beautiful and distracting.
Lady Adriana Sommerville knows Nicholas will be back and resigns herself to having to manage his interaction with her aging father. She successfully negotiates that potential quagmire only, at the very last moment, to discover that the horse is missing.
Stunned, Addie insists on setting out in pursuit and is not so silly as to refuse Nicholas’s support. But as they follow on the heels of the Barbarian, their adventures and encounters open their eyes to the prospect of a more enduring partnership.
Yet before they can follow that trail farther and before they can lay hands on the horse, through shock after shock, their pursuit uncovers a complicated plot that strips away masks and rescripts everything Addie and her siblings thought they knew about the Sommerville family.
Stephanie Laurens is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of novels set in Regency England that have captivated readers around the globe.
Matthew Brenher, originally from London, now lives in Los Angeles. His theatrical background includes performances in no fewer than twenty Shakespearean productions, including Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo in Romeo & Juliet, and the title role in Henry V. In Los Angeles, he played Claudius in Hamlet, Cassio in Othello, Antony in Antony & Cleopatra, Antipholous of Syracuse in Comedy of Errors, and Orsino in Twelfth Night. Other theater includes: Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Trigorin in The Seagull, Alistair in Shaw’s The Millionairess, Jerry in Pinter’s Betrayal, the title role in Dracula, and George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, for which he was awarded best performance by a lead actor/drama by Stage Scene LA 2009–2010. He’s performed in new plays, most recently in A Bitter Fruit for Palestine, Vulcan in Love’s Mistress at the famous Globe theater in London, and Petko in an acclaimed production of The Mapletree Game. On television, he played “Mad” Marcus for six months in the now defunct British soap Brookside. Other television includes: Rules of Engagement, Bodyguards, The Blind Date, Starhunter, The Grid, Eastenders, and Nostradamus. Films include Execution, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Stay Shy, and The Boy Who would Be King. He works in commercials and industrials and is an accomplished voice-over artist.