Lessons of Love
Jolynn Raymond

In 1842 Louisiana, Jolie Dupree lives an oppressive life ruled by her strict and unloving stepfather. She has the luxuries of plantation life, but feels suffocated under his watchful eye. Fate brings an abrupt change in the form of Cole Jameson, a man full of wealth but short on acceptance into society. He needs the cloak of respectability to hide behind, and silence the rumors of girls gone missing while in his company. His business of selling genteel women to rich men with unsavory tastes, must not be discovered.
When he comes upon the lovely Jolie bathing in a secluded glen, he sees in her the answer to his problem. A young bride with an old family name will provide an aura of propriety. She is a girl from a suitable family, but also one who is not loved. She's perfect for his scheme. He carries her home, bound, wet, and almost bare, with a story of saved virtue, and is granted her hand in marriage.
Cole is a man who has never loved and has no plans to start. He doesn't give a care for the women whose lives he shatters, but Jolie isn't just any woman. Her beauty bewitches him even as her stubborn will defies him time after time. He weds her with plans to make her an ornament on his arm and a slave in his bed. He will teach her how to please a man with a hard hand and an unfeeling heart.
Will Cole be able to keep his cold heart and continue with his business of white slavery, treating his new wife as cruelly as he does all his captives? Or will Jolie's fiery spirit and beauty break through the ice that surrounds his heart and put an end to his cruel ways?