Fair Margaret

In Tudor England, where wealth and bloodlines determine a man's worth, Peter Brome loves Margaret Castell with a devotion he can never speak aloud. Born noble but orphaned into poverty, he has been raised by Margaret's wealthy merchant father - never quite family, never quite worthy of the dark-eyed girl who has owned his heart since childhood. When the powerful Marquis d'Aguilar, a Spanish noble on a secret mission for the Inquisition, sets his sights on Margaret, Peter faces a rival whose power dwarfs his own. The abduction comes swiftly. Margaret is stolen away to Spain, and Peter - poor, fatherless, with nothing but love and desperation - gives chase across sea and continent. What follows is adventure at its most romantic: a dangerous journey through Spain, an audience with the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella themselves, and a battle of wills against a man who believes he can own whatever he desires. This is H. Rider Haggard at his finest - swashbuckling romance where love is the truest adventure, and where a man without fortune must prove his worth through something far more precious: courage.