A country house party gives some libertines the chance to
take matters too far and a lady hides in the bedchamber of
Taylen, Duke of Alderworth. But Lady Lucinda Wellingham has
found no safe harbour, for his name is a byword for
dissolution already....
Reading Machiavelli, THE DISSOLUTE DUKE is quite pleased to
have company, and locking the door, he explains his
parents' broken marriage to Lucinda, to excuse his lack of
morals, before changing his mind and taking her home in his
carriage. Taylen didn't bargain for his carriage crashing
in the dark, and soon all of London knows the story of
Lucinda's serious injuries. The girl's horrified brothers
take out their anger on the wounded Duke and order him to
save Lucinda's name by wedding her. Taylen's family's debts
will be paid and he must leave England.
The resulting wedding makes nobody happy, but Tay feels the
weight slip off his shoulders as the sea breeze takes him
to America, where there are fortunes to be made.
Prospering, he feels the need of an heir... but the only
woman who can give him one is in England, and never wishes
to set eyes on him again.
Among the wealthy set of the 1830s, the mere possibility
that an unmarried woman might have been alone with a man
was considered scandalous, while married women (after a few
children had been produced) and men of all ages behaved
with less concern for rumour. Thus the story puts too much
store on whether Lucinda had actually been ravished. The
fact of her injuries comes across more as an inescapable
hazard of travelling. Later, Lucinda moves house to a
bachelor household without taking any servants, when she
would certainly have brought her own ladies' maid. This
was a very high-status post and the downstairs maids with
their raw red hands would not have fitted the bill.
Sophia James has given us a proud but reasonable young
woman, who knows that her token husband has been hard done
by but can't see a way to resolve the dilemma, because
women were given so little freedom and money. There was no
shortage of dissolute young men, but the taxes imposed to
pay for Napoleon's wars had reduced many estates. THE
DISSOLUTE DUKE is an entertaining read and I look forward
to more by James.
With a name synonymous with sin and debauchery so shocking
it is spoken of only in whispers, Taylen Ellesmere, Duke of
Alderworth, is more surprised than anyone when he finds
himself forced to marry! Before the ink is dry on the
register, he turns his back on this sham of a marriage and
leaves.
Three years later, having barely survived the scandal, Lady
Lucinda has placed one delicately shod foot back in the
hallowed halls of the ton when her husband returns. He has
an offer she can't refuse. And in exchange? Their wedding
night!
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