In Megan Frampton’s captivating new Dukes
Behaving Badly novel, we learn the answer to the question:
Why do dukes fall in love?
Michael, the Duke of Hadlow, has the liberty of enjoying an indiscretion .
. . or several. But when it comes time for him to take a proper bride, he
ultimately realizes he wants only one woman: Edwina Cheltam. He’d hired her as
his secretary, only to quickly discover she was sensuous and intelligent.
They embark on a passionate affair, and when she breaks it off, he accepts
her decision as the logical one . . . but only at first. Then he decides to
pursue her.
Michael is brilliant, single-minded, and utterly indifferent to being the
talk of the ton. It’s even said his only true friend is his dog. Edwina had
begged him to marry someone appropriate–—someone aristocratic . . . someone
high-born . . . someone else. But the only thing more persuasive than a duke
intent on seduction is one who has fallen irrevocably in love.
I really enjoyed Michael and Edwina's journey to happy ever after. Michael starts off very rude, but I soon discovered that it was mainly due to his being alone for so long. The way he did not ignore Edwina as a candidate as his secretary just because she was a woman, the way he immediately connected with Gertrude and the way he was so confused by the feelings they both caused him, showed me that he really did care but he did not understand what that meant. It was entertaining to see how he did things completely out of character when they were around because he just couldn't help himself. Edwina is a strong heroine who is willing to do what it takes to provide for her daughter. While she loves that she is finally being appreciated and used for her brain, there is a part of her that missed being noticed and admired for the looks as well, but only when it comes to Michael. Their relationship was slow to progress from professional to personal, but it was nice that they got to know each other before getting physical. Gertrude is a really cute girl with a big personality and I can see why she won Michael over almost instantly. I loved the way each chapter began with a reason why Dukes fall in love - it added a bit a humor to the story. Overall, it is a good read without a lot of drama.
I received an ARC via Edelweiss for the purpose of an honest review. I was not compensated for this review, all conclusions are my own.
Excerpt from Chapter 1
Chapter 1
1844
The Quality Employment Agency, London
“He left you with
nothing?”
Edwina glanced
to the side of the room, a tactic she knew full well wouldn’t disguise the
moisture in her eyes, especially not from Carolyn, her oldest and dearest
friend. They’d met when Edwina’s late husband had wanted to find a respectable,
but inexpensive, maidservant, and Carolyn’s agency had found the perfect
person. And Edwina had finally found a friend she could actually talk to.
The room was as
familiar to her as her own lodgings—and definitely more welcoming. A kettle was
heating up water on the small stove, the tea things—the chipped blue cup for
Carolyn, the cup with the handle that was always too hot for her—waiting until
the water boiled.
Cozy,
comfortable, and everything else she was not.
“No.” She spoke
plainly, unable and unwilling to disguise the truth of it.
Eight years of
marriage to one of the most boring men of her acquaintance, and he didn’t even
have the decency to leave her financially comfortable when he died.
“I can help
you, you know,” Carolyn said in a soft voice. She got up as the kettle began to
whistle and started preparing the tea.
Edwina’s throat
tightened. “I won’t take your money.” Fine words for a pauper—they both knew that
if the choice came between accepting charity and letting her daughter starve,
Edwina would take the money. Gertrude sat on the floor, playing with her dolls.
Was she already getting thinner? Edwina’s heart hurt at the thought, and she
had to bite the inside of her cheek not to start fretting aloud. That would do
nothing but worry her daughter, who wasn’t old enough to understand.
Edwina wasn’t
entirely certain she was old enough to understand, either.
“I wasn’t
offering to give you any money,” Carolyn replied in a dry tone of voice,
glancing over her shoulder as she spoke.
Edwina’s gaze
met Carolyn’s.
“Well, what
then?” she asked in an unsteady voice.
“Employment,”
Carolyn replied, returning to her task.
“Employment?”
Edwina echoed, an uneasy feeling settling somewhere in her gut. The gut that
was remarkably close to her stomach, which hadn’t eaten today, and had only had
some porridge and some hard cheese yesterday.
So the uneasy
feeling would have to ease.
“You do know I
run an employment agency.” Carolyn gestured to the room they sat in. “Since you
have used my services.”
“Yes, back when
I could afford them,” Edwina replied in a tone that was both wry and pained.
She took a deep
breath, and looked around her. It was undeniably pleasant, if modest. The cozy,
comfortable room of the Quality Employment Agency, filled with books, papers, mismatched
chairs, and an enormous battered desk, where Carolyn normally sat, welcomed
her, made her feel safe in a way her new lodgings did not.
“Yes, but—” and
then Edwina felt both foolish and snobby, since the answer was obvious, and yet
had not occurred to her because of who she was. Who she had been.
“But what?”
Carolyn picked up the teacups, wincing as she felt the heat from the offending handle.
She brought them over to where Edwina was seated, placing them on the desk and
sitting back down in her usual spot. “You need a job, Edwina. No matter who you
are. Even ladies—especially ladies, judging from my experience—need to have enough
money to eat and to live. Even if their husbands were so disappointing as to
leave them bereft of anything but their good name.”
“And even that
was sullied, thanks to George’s entrusting of the accounts to his brother as
soon as it seemed the businesses were getting profitable, and worthy of
notice,” Edwina remarked in a bitter tone. She kept her tone low, so her
daughter couldn’t hear. “I told him I could handle them, that I had gotten them
to the state they were in, not to mention I told him how untrustworthy his
brother was—and yet he said he’d never ‘let a female deal with important
things,’ ” she said in an imitation of her late husband.
“More fool he,”
Carolyn remarked. “If he had allowed you to continue to oversee the finances you
wouldn’t be in this situation now, would you?”
It was a
well-worn discussion, but one that still made Edwina angry. George had been so
blind to her attributes he hadn’t seen she was skilled at maths, far better
than anyone in his own family, especially his debt-beleaguered younger brother.
He had been fine when she oversaw the accounts when they weren’t important—but
ironically, as soon as her skill had yielded results, he took them away from
her and handed them to a man. Simply because he was a man, and his brother, and
not a woman, and his wife.
And now she and
little Gertrude were being made to suffer for it. George’s brother hadn’t done more
than shrug when Edwina had told him how George had left her. He already had a wife,
he said, and he couldn’t afford to take her in, although he had offered a place
to his niece.
But Edwina couldn’t
bear the thought of being separated from her daughter; she was the only thing
keeping Edwina from stepping in front of an oxcart one day. That she and
Gertrude might starve to death was not something she wanted to contemplate—what
reasonable person would?—even though she had to.
Which brought
her back to why she was currently sitting with her closest friend in said
closest friend’s employment agency, realizing that perhaps she had to consider
employment herself.
“What can I
do?” she said at last, hating how pathetic and needy she sounded. Better pathetic
and needy than dead, a voice said
inside her head.
Carolyn
chuckled, taking a sip of her tea. “What can’t you do? You can balance
accounts, drive hard bargains with tradesmen, oversee skittish maids, sort out the
temperamental discord among upper-class servants, and keep an older husband relatively
comfortable in illness. Not to mention you are extremely well-read—there are
benefits to having a neglectful husband—and your parents ensured you had all
the education you’d need to be an adept wife, whether you married a politician,
a solicitor, or even a lord.”
“Or a
businessman with lofty pretensions,” Edwina added. “They thought they had taken
care of me. I wish they were still here.” She shook her head. “I do not wish to
be married again, if that is the employment you are suggesting.” Once was enough,
and she would have said never would have been enough if it weren’t for
Gertrude. And it is not as though she had any other family to resort to; her
parents had both been only children, and she had no relatives that she knew of.
“I am not in a
husband acquisition business, Edwina,” Carolyn replied in a mocking tone. “If
I were, don’t you think I could afford a better office?”
They both
glanced around at the tidy but shabby room. “Excellent point,” Edwina replied with
a grin, picking up the cup with the still-hot handle and taking a welcome sip
of tea. “So what do you have in mind?
Megan Frampton writes
historical romance under her own name and romantic women’s fiction as Megan
Caldwell. She likes the color black, gin, dark-haired British men, and huge
earrings, not in that order. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband
and son. You can visit her website at www.meganframpton.com. She tweets as
@meganf, and is at facebook.com/meganframptonbooks.
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