Earl Spence Keenan and his wife, Emma, have a most peculiar marital arrangement! Emma takes care of their estate, Kellworth, while he travels and roams without restriction. So surprised is she when his coffin containing his dead body is brought home for a funeral, one for which she has little money and perhaps less feeling than she would have liked. “She shrugged. What did any of it matter? The vestiges of her youthful dreams, dreams she had not even realized she'd harbored, had died with Spence.”

For Earl's gambling habits have meant he had to draw on all the money needed to pay his debts and fuel his future gambling, and Emma has suffered dearly for Earl's greedy habit. Imagine her shock when the coffin is opened and she discovers Earl gasping for breath and begging for water!

As she cares for him in his recovery period, she discovers that he irritates her to no end and he discovers that she is less tolerant than he initially remembered. Why can he not stay for long at the estate? What secret lurks behind his conscious recognition and can he control the wanderlust that threatens to remove him and thus any chance of solvency for his family?

Can love hold anyone with a burdened past? How is he determined to win back the love of Emma despite what he has endured and what he has caused? Is it too late for him to change the future? This is a fine historical Regency romance which lovers of the genre are sure to enjoy and newcomers will find has enough history and romance to balance the scales of an entertaining tale!

Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on March 30, 2006

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