The Valentine Legacy (Legacy Series #3) by Catherine Coulter

From the Publisher

Twenty-year-old Jessie Warfield is branded a disgrace for riding as a jockey on her father's racehorses, wearing men's clothing, exposing her skin to the sun and, in general, not acting like a lady at all.

James Wyndham, eligible widower and owner of a nearby horse farm, is Jessie's rival on the race track. Outwardly competitive to the extreme with James, she is secretly in love with him. James, having known her since she was fourteen, sees her only as a little sister and a bratty one at that.

Together they are the unlikeliest romantic duo among their native Baltimore riding set. When Jessie sets out to protect James from a marriage entrapment, she ends up compromising her own reputation and is pressured into leaving town. She flees to an unlikely haven: the estate of James's British cousins, the Earl and "Duchess" of Chase. There she is pampered, dressed, and transformed into a lady. Smitten by the new Jessie, James proposes and they marry.

Their new, shared passion results in hideous nightmares - nightmares that soon reveal themselves to be recovered memories of a long-ago attempted rape and murder. When connections are made between those events and the pirate Blackbeard's diaries, the hunt is on for his buried treasure.

Library Journal

Refusing to marry James Wyndham, the man she has loved secretly for years, outspoken, naive Jessie Warfield escapes to England and the estate of James's cousins- and a life as a "nanny." However, when James comes to fetch her, a group of delightful meddlers make certain that they end up neatly married instead. Old secrets, a pirate's legacy, and a cast of wonderful characters are part of this funny, lively, and occasionally mysterious story that provides a satisfactory conclusion to Coulter's "Legacy" trilogy (The Wyndham Legacy, Putnam, 1994, and The Nightingale Legacy, Putnam, 1994.) Readers who enjoy this historical might also find those by Jo Beverley of interest. [Coulter lives in Mill Valley, Cal.]

BookList

The horse-racing world of nineteenth-century Baltimore makes a great setting for Coulter's newest romance, the last in the Legacy trilogy, following "The Nightingale Legacy" (1994) and "The Wyndham Legacy" (1994). Tomboyish jockey Jessie Warfield captures the attention, if not the affection, of James Wyndham by beating him in races, dressing and riding in a definitely unfeminine fashion, and even rescuing a horse stolen from his stables. Naturally the two are destined for love and marriage, but it takes the "My Fair Lady" ministrations of Wyndham's English kin over a runaway Jessie to seal their fate. This conclusion to Coulter's Legacy trilogy reintroduces lively characters from across the sea and winds up with an American treasure hunt involving a pirate legacy. Coulter, while more inclined to adventure than realism, does an excellent job of luring her readers into this unlikely, exuberant adventure.

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