When Love Commands — Jennifer Wilde

Savagery & Splendor

This tumultuous love story continues the rapturous adventures of Marietta Danver, a woman whose beauty sets men's hearts aflame. Marietta races to London by carriage to start a new life with the only man she has ever truly loved-Jeremy Bond, the renegade soldier of fortune who has saved her life more than once. But after a horrifying crash, her whole world goes black.

When she regains consciousness ten days later, she finds herself in the care of Lucie Orlov, and her uncle-- the tall, broodingly handsome, wildly passionate Russian--Count Gregory Orlov, notorious as Catherine the Great 's uncrowned emperor and now her banished lover. Never has Marietta encountered such frank sensuality in a man-never has she been so vulnerable. For she has learned that Jeremy left London, taking all of her money and a bewitching blonde with him! With no place else to turn to, Marietta agrees to act as Lucie's companion during the Orlovs' journey back to Russia, and thereby earn her return passage to America.

As her conveyance sped across the wintry Russian landscape, not even her sumptuous furs could keep out the sudden chill of apprehension. Was she letting wounded vanity lead her into danger? Her heart had been broken... but could she really forget by running off to St. Petersburg with Count Gregory Orlov? Soon it was too late for regrets. Gregory revealed the violent nature which took pleasure in her torment. Forced to masquerade as his mistress in the imperial court, she finds she is no more than a prisoner under his iron rule. Snared in the intrigues of a glittering imperial court... pursued by the rage of a jealous empress... thrust into the savagery of revolution.

In a daring escape attempt, Marietta sets out across the frozen landscape towards freedom-only to be captured by a mob of bloodthirsty, revolutionary peasants. But she would rather die than succumb to their leader. In the darkest hour of her life, caged like an animal while she awaits certain death, she dreams of the man she has tried desperately to forget... the man who had promised her a lifetime of happiness so long ago... Defenseless and nearly broken, she resigned herself to death, or worse. Yet the man she had run from, trying to forget, had not forgotten her... or the dreams of love they once shared.