A Lady's Agreement

Book 2 - A Lady’s Agreement by Terri Brisbin

 Iain Buchanan has built a shipping empire, running it from his properties and warehouses along the Edinburgh port of Leith. Self-made, he fought his way up from the streets to the wealth and power of the industrial center of Edinburgh. Iain does not claim to be a gentleman but the nobles of Edinburgh and Scotland do not hesitate to use his businesses or to tolerate him among their parties and fetes since he’d been honored by the king for his aid in supplying troops during the Napoleonic wars. No one stands in his way when he wants something and he learned early in life to trust no one, for that is the way to danger, loss and poverty. And Iain is determined that he will never look back and never stop moving forward. A good plan until one woman seems to thwart it.

Lady Clare Logan was once the pampered daughter of an earl until she married the owner of a weaving company for true love. Years later, abandoned by her family and without sons to inherit, she is a widow who decides to use the wealth and buildings she’s been left for a good purpose—starting schools to educate poor children. And her plan is going well until approvals for her school for girls is blocked. Her late husband’s main competitor, claiming an existing gentleman’s agreement, has decided he should gather her properties into his growing empire—the very ones she needs for her schools.

Iain mistakes Clare’s ladylike behavior and appearance and instead finds a intelligent, beguiling, stunningly-beautiful woman with a spine of steel and the means to make his life miserable. But as they battle for possession of these critical properties, he cannot resist her wit and her fresh approach to life or the way her lips curl when she’s about to tell him no. Soon, the battle is less about the buildings and more about Iain’s desire and need for the woman who owns them. But, in gaining one he may lose the other—something he cannot afford.

What will it take to convince the daft woman to accept his offer and walk away from her plans?