THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER by Kate Huntingtin, Regency Romance at The Romance Club http://www.theromanceclub.com

THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER
by Kate Huntington
Zebra Regency Romance ~ ISBN 0-8217-7675-4 ~ U.S. $4.99; CAN $6.99

Large Print Edition from Thorndike
ISBN 0-7862-6787-9 , Regency Romance, $27.95.

For war hero Adam Lyonbridge, the ton's social minefields are more treacherous than most battles. Little wonder he dreads the prospect of marrying his general's fashionable daughter, Isabella. But before the nuptials, General Grimsby needs Adam to escort his other daughter, born on the wrong side of the blanket, from the dangerous Spanish Peninsula to England. Adam has never met a lovelier or more stubborn lady than Marian Randall, whom he has a devil of a time persuading to leave her duties as an arm nurse . . . and who makes him wish he could switch one fiancee for another.

As if discovering her true parentage wasn't shock enough, Marian finds herself strong-armed into returning to England by the undeniably handsome Major Lyonbridge. Upon her arrival, she is welcomed by her flighty, albeit friendly half-sister -- and hated by the general's resentful wife. Adam's companionship is an unexpected comfort, yet after Isabella jilts him, Marian realizes she'd happily fill the other girl's shoes But how will Adam react when Marian puts her own reputation on the line to protect Isabella from scandal?

"Ms. Huntington has a flare for character and dialogue that puts her in the upper echelon of regency writers." -- Rendezvous Magazine.

"Kate Huntingdon is a wonderful storyteller. She continues to surprise and delight her readers with vivid characters and enchanting tales." -- Affaire de Coeur

A haze of anger and gunpowder and black grit stung Major Adam Lyonbridge's eyes as he charged and slashed and took down frog after bloody frog. His horse had been shot out from under him after the first charge and, surrounded by enemies, he threw his head back and bared his teeth in defiance.

He was aware that his men called him The Berserker because of his ferocity and courage in battle, for, in truth, when the bloodlust was upon him he felt no fear. His mind was consumed with war. It was his business, and he exulted in it.

In truth, it was a relief to be able to unleash the frustration that had been built up over three weeks of marching and counter-marching by Lord Wellington's and the French General Marmont's well-matched troops while each wily commander waited for the other to make the first mistake.

The first to do so had been Marmont, and Wellington immediately sent the third division-- of which Adam's regiment was a member -- to shatter the French line.

Adam was aware of a weight hitting his thigh as the man next to him, a likable young soldier under his command named William Quarterhouse, called out a warning and deliberately took a bullet meant for Adam. The boy's mother had begged him with tears in her eyes at Portsmouth to take care of her precious son while William looked on in acute embarrassment.

Adam fought on until his arms felt like lead and his legs were numb for Quarterhouse and the rest of his fallen countrymen, who would have been on their farms overseeing their crops, at their desks clerking, or in their own beds, making love with their wives, had it not been for this hellish war.

Adam threw back his head and shouted in savage exultation as another enemy hit the ground with his head half severed from his body.

The battle was over. A miasma of burning flesh, the screaming of dying horses and horror hung over the battlefield as Adam searched for those of his fallen men who might have survived. He had returned to the place where he had seen young Quarterhouse fall, but the young man's body was gone.

Had he been taken for treatment to the regimental hospital, now housed in a convent, or had his corpse been removed for burial? And what of Adam's second-in-command? And all the other men who had faced death on his orders?

There was only one way to find out. Adam ignored the invitations of some drunken soldiers to join them in their revelry and went to the regimental hospital.

He entered the hospital to find wounded men lying about, groaning. Those who were still in their right minds stood -- or straightened, if they could not stand -- at his entrance.

"As you were," he said mechanically as he looked around and recognized one of his men. The soldier's eyes lit up.

"Major Lyonbridge! Quarterhouse said the last time he saw you there was a saber poised at your head."

As Adam turned away, one of the men said, "I told you it would take more than the French to cause The Berserker to stick his spoon in the wall!"

Adam strode in the doorway to see William lying on a cot, bare to the waist, and being ministered to by a -- Adam blinked.

The tired, red-rimmed, green eyes of said female narrowed. She had disheveled red hair and a trim figure clothed in a gray muslin gown streaked with blood and gore.

Her face was beautiful with its firm jaw and delicate features under the fatigue and sheen of perspiration. She looked like an angel of death.

"Oh, very good," she said sarcastically. "Now we know your eyesight is unimpaired. If you want attention for that arm, you will have to wait until I am finished here."

Adam frowned and looked down at the blood crusting his sleeve. He had not even known he was injured. It had happened before. When he was fighting, he was equally impervious to heat, cold, wet and pain.

The girl -- for she could not have reached twenty -- put her hands on her hips and scowled at him.

"I do not care if he is Lord Wellington himself," Miss Randall snapped. "Two of his lot were already here and took my father away to coddle their hurts because the officers are so squeamish about being treated with the enlisted men, and this one can just wait his turn until I've got this bullet out of your shoulder."

"Excellent," the girl said, turning to Adam. Her movement caused a surprisingly delicate fragrance to tease his nostrils for a moment.

Could it be . . . orange blossom? Suddenly he was reminded of moonlit gardens and pretty girls in white dresses with flowers in their hair right in the middle of all this stench and death.

"If you want to be useful, hero, you might hold down Private Quarterhouse, here, while I extract this ball," the girl said. "You're a big enough fellow that you should be able to do the job with one hand if your wounded arm bothers you."

"Have you any brandy?" Adam asked. The private was stone, cold sober and his face was dead white, not a good state to be in if some adder-tongued female was about to dig a bullet out of one's shoulder.

"If so, I am in the wrong profession, am I not?" he asked scornfully. "For Quarterhouse, of course."

"Oh. My apologies, major," she said with a sigh as she reached back to rub the small of her back. "Watching their pain and knowing I am able to do so little to relieve it makes me snappish. I am sorry to say we had depleted our store of spirits an hour before the battle was over."

"Then, brace yourself, Quarterhouse," Adam said grimly as he held down the man, and the girl competently extracted the bullet. It wasn't an easy process, and the pain in the private's eyes made Adam's gut clench. The whole time, Quarterhouse looked up at him with so much undeserved hero worship in his pain-filled eyes that Adam felt like an imposter.

"Thank you, sir," the young man said when the ordeal was over and the girl had wrapped his shoulder in clean bandages. "This is a rare honor. I must write to my family directly to tell them the hero of Salamanca personally held me down while the bullet was dug out."

"Orderly, how many more are waiting outside?" she asked when the man who had been with the wounded in the outer room stuck his head in the doorway.

"It is your turn, then, major," the girl said to Adam as he took Quarterhouse's arm and helped him get up from the cot. The boy groaned.

"Not until I see that arm," Miss Randall said. Her hands were on her hips again.

"It looks like more than a scratch," the girl said. "If I don't take care of it now, it could become infected. My father has more than enough demands on his time without being called away to treat you for it. Sit on the cot, if you please, major. If you refuse, I will be forced to enlist Private Quarterhouse's assistance in holding you down."

"Major Lyonbridge, I know it isn't customary for officers to be treated in the hospital with the enlisted men, but I am the only person available to aid you. My knowledge is limited, but I am perfectly capable of cleaning and dressing your wound. Who knows when my father will return? You might have a long wait in your quarters until he can be sent to you."

"Begging your pardon, sir, you should have your arm seen to," Private Quarterhouse said bashfully. The hero worship still shone in his eyes. "It would be a blow to the army if anything happened to you."

"On the other hand, if the Major is afraid to let a mere female dress his arm -- " the girl began.

"I am afraid of nothing, you impudent girl," he said, looking her straight in the eye. He sat on the cot and removed his coat. Then his shirt.

Marian Randall barely kept herself from sighing. She had never seen such a superb specimen of manhood, but she was not about to gratify the famous Major Adam Lyonbridge's vanity by letting him catch her admiring the sculptured musculature of his well-developed chest.

Whatever was wrong with her? She had been looking at half-naked males all day without embarrassment, but now she felt a strong desire to blush.

Major Lyonbridge might have broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and muscular arms that would do justice to a warrior god as well as compelling blue eyes that glinted at her alternately with annoyance and amusement, but he was hardly a young lady's dream of romance at the moment. His brown hair was matted to his head with sweat, and it was definitely wise if one refrained from inhaling in his vicinity.

"You were right," she said as inspected the saber cut, which was long and crusted with blood, but looked relatively minor for all that. She started to clean it preparatory to probing it for bits of fabric and other foreign material that could cause an infection. "Just a scratch."

"Your father is Captain Randall, the surgeon, I presume. I am surprised he exposes you to such unpleasantness as this," the major said. Marian had to give him credit. He didn't even flinch when she probed the wound.

"My mother always accompanied Father on campaign, and I was old enough to leave school when she died, so I took her place," she said. "Ordinarily I would be with the officers' wives now, rolling lint for bandages and brewing tea, but Father was taken off to treat some officers and I had to do something to help these poor men. I am rather adept at patching up men's hurts when the situation arises. My mother and I both have had to dig out a bullet or two in an emergency situation."

"Does your father not hesitate to expose you to potential insult by permitting you to deal so directly with the men?" Major Lyonbridge asked.

"Hardly! He is a fair hand with a knife, my father," she said proudly. "Any man reckless enough to take unwelcome liberties with me would find himself at the wrong end of one my father's extremely sharp surgical instruments, I promise you."

Marian finished securing the bandage and regarded her handiwork with satisfaction.

"There. If your arm gives you any trouble, send for my father tomorrow so he can have a look at it," Marian said in dismissal. "I am certain you have seen enough action to know you must keep it clean and have the bandages changed frequently."

He winced as he shrugged his shoulders back into his shirt, and he left the room with his good hand on Private Quarterhouse's shoulder.

So that was the celebrated Major Adam Lyonbridge, the one said to be such a devil in battle and the despair of all the infatuated ladies. After meeting him, she had no doubt it was true.

She felt her heart flutter with unwelcome feminine interest, and she quickly went back to her task of putting away her supplies.

Handsome, well-born cavalry officers were well above her touch. Especially this one.

Major Lyonbridge, she knew from listening to the officers' wives gossip, was betrothed to the daughter of General Lord Grimsby, his commanding officer.

She smiled as she thought of what her late mother would have said if she were still alive.

"It was bad enough that you brought her on campaign with you against my expressed wishes! But to actually permit her to treat the men in the hospital? The enlisted men? Are you insane?" shouted General Lord Grimsby when Captain Lawrence Randall, the regimental surgeon, reported to his campaign office. The general had sent one of his aides to demand the surgeon attend him as soon as he had learned from Major Lyonbridge that the regimental surgeon's daughter -- in reality his daughter -- had made a tidy job of dressing his saber wound.

"Marian is a woman grown and she makes her own decisions," the surgeon said with a lift of his bushy white brows.

"It is too dangerous for her to be here! I told you she was to stay in London at school, and you disobeyed me."

They had been over this ground before. Apparently Captain Randall decided he might as well make himself comfortable if they were to hash over their old argument. Again.

"Sooner or later, a girl has to leave school," the surgeon said, sitting down uninvited. He stretched out his legs. "We agreed one-and-twenty years ago when I married Annie that you were to relinquish any interest in my daughter."

"Annie would be alive now if she hadn't married you. I would have taken care of her. You took advantage of her confusion to marry her behind my back, and you took her on campaign with you. It killed me to see her suffer deprivation and not be able to aid her."

"All I did -- and it was the best thing I've ever done -- is offer her and her child the protection of my name. Don't come over the injured party with me, Lord Grimsby." There was nothing respectful in the way he spoke the general's title. "You were, and are, married. You should have told Annie the truth before you got her with child. You never should have touched her."

Knowing he had been in the wrong, the general returned to his original grievance.

"I have paid, and paid well, to have Annie's daughter kept at school, safe from harm," he said. "That was our agreement. I could not stop you from taking Annie on campaign, but my child was to remain in England."

The surgeon stood and leaned over the general's desk so he could glare directly into the superior officer's eyes.

"It shamed her mother and me to take your money for her schooling, but we took it for her sake. Beyond that I have never accepted a penny from you for her support. I have fed her and clothed her and sheltered her all these years. Do you think Annie or I, either one of us, wanted anything from you?"

"You are assuming you will outlive me. In such a case you can come to Marian's rescue," the surgeon taunted him, "if you aren't too afraid of your lady wife's wrath to acknowledge her."

The ambitious general owed his social position and the political preferment that got him a superior rank to the influence of his wife's powerful family, and well he knew it. She was aware of his little affairs. He suspected she had enjoyed a few of her own, although no whisper of scandal had ever been connected with her name. If she learned of his natural daughter, he would never hear the end of it. She was a petty woman, and her revenge would be terrible.

But he could hardly back down before the surgeon after declaring his interest in the girl.

"I would make sure she gets back to England," the general promised. "I would find her a husband to take care of her."

The surgeon sat down and passed a hand across his eyes. He looked exhausted and old. The general knew Captain Randall was only five years older than himself. Did he look so old?

"In truth, I have been much worried that I would die and leave her stranded on campaign without protection," the captain said ruefully. "I shall leave a letter with you for her, commending her into your care if I should die. In it, I will acknowledge the truth of her birth and state my wish that you become her guardian if I predecease you."

"Very well," the general said as he pushed paper and pen across the desk at him. The surgeon began to write.

"Until the day I die, she is not to know that I am not her natural father," the surgeon said, pausing for a moment in his writing.

The general nodded stiffly. The surgeon finished the letter and the general read it through. Then, satisfied, he dismissed the man. Captain Randall stood up with a stifled groan and made his weary way out of the room.

Little did the general suspect it would be the last time he would see his old rival alive.

iTRC Radio!

Listen today
(high speed connection recommended)

To Play a Show: click on "Play MP3" To Download a Show: right click, and "Save Target As" to desktop!
Click here to Subscribe and automatically receive our shows as they are released! More Shows!

Sign up for our FREE NEWSLETTER!
and receive individual emails or the daily digest and be automatically entered into our monthly drawings. To subscribe, just send a blank email to: TRCreaders-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Calendar ♥ Previews ♥ Contests ♥ News ♥ Author Services ♥ Bookseller News