Forever My Love

Neither wartime tensions nor extravagant melodrama can make O'Banyon's ( Cheyenne Sunrise ) preposterous romance seem interesting. In late 1774, 14-year-old Royal Bradford's father dies, and she becomes the impoverished ward of Damon Routhland, a Georgia plantation owner who has a ``reputation with women.'' Damon sends the girl to school in England, where she is snubbed by her aristocratic schoolmates until she rescues the crippled Lady Alissa Seaton--socially, the highest-ranking girl in the school--from a runaway cart and then secretly helps the young woman learn to walk again. Lord Preston Seaton, Alissa's brother, becomes smitten with Royal; but traveling to the Colonies (where the revolution is underway) on a diplomatic mission, he is taken prisoner. Royal, who can't see why ``men are dying over something as frivolous as taxes,'' returns to Georgia to try to help Preston. She contacts Damon (now an American colonel) and conceals her identity so she can sexually ``toy with him, torment him'' before asking him to find Preston. Damon nobly sets out to rescue his rival and, ultimately, to win the heart of his wanton ward. (Aug.)