Dear Reader, Here is the first of my new 'Brides' trilogy, in which three unconventional young women vow they will never marry-only to be overtaken by destiny. Bride #1 is the outspoken Portia.... It's bad enough that seventeen-year-old Portia Worth is taken in by her uncle, the marquis of Granville, after her father dies. As the bastard niece, Portia knows she can expect little beyond a roof over her head and a place at the table. But it truly adds insult to injury when the Granvilles' archenemy, the outlaw Rufus Decatur, hatches a scheme to abduct the marquis's daughter-only to kidnap Portia by accident. Portia, who possesses more than a streak of independence as well as a talent for resistance, does not take kindly to being abducted-mistakenly or otherwise. Decatur will...