Love and Liberty by Aviva Orr

Can love survive secrets, lies, and murder?

Annabel Leonard’s life takes a drastic turn when her father, a wealthy confectionary merchant, demands that she marry a bankrupt viscount to merge the family fortune with a title. Annabel soon discovers that the intended viscount is a brute who masks his sadistic proclivities behind good looks and charm. When her hard-headed father and conniving stepmother refuse to listen to reason, she takes matters into her own hands, plotting her escape and fleeing her home late one night.

Since discovering a family secret that casts doubt on his paternity and title, Lord Henry Hudsyn has been on a downward spiral, causing those who love him to grow concerned about his drinking and gambling habits. Henry travels to Canterbury to appease his worried cousin and attempts to rehabilitate himself by volunteering at her ladies’ college. Things look up when he meets Anne Crawford, a charming young widow. But little does Henry know the woman he is falling in love with isn’t a widow named Anne Crawford. She’s Annabel Leonard—the missing young heiress betrothed to Henry’s nemesis–whose sudden disappearance from her father’s Park Lane mansion has headlined the newspapers for weeks.