Angel in My Arms

In the mid-1860s the impoverished and orphaned Lady Elizabeth Ashton arrives with her brother and her maid in Montana, looking for her grandparent's ranch, the Red Swan. The old couple still lives on the land, but it now belongs to Beau Shannon, who, Elizabeth has been told, cheated them out of it in a card game. Beau claims that the land has been in his family for a century, but for reasons that aren't clear he lets Elizabeth ``win'' back half of the ranch during a ludicrous poker game in which she strips to her camisole before a saloon full of men. This cheap titillation, which Morrow ( Beneath a Pale Moon ) offers instead of romance, is complemented by argumentative banter laced with crude, childish humor as the English trio troops off to live with Beau and Elizabeth's grandparents at the Red Swan. Elizabeth's maid, pretending to speak French, tells the ranch's scruffy cook, ``Mon-sewer la pee-you, oh, stink-au-roo!'' On the ranch Elizabeth is saved from being trampled by a horse and helps out at a calving, while villains scheme to get the Red Swan--but this action is no substitute for plot. (June)