Deckard Payne, Duke of Warburton, barely survived the Napoleonic Wars and came home to recover. He took time to get over his injuries, but was determined to carry out a promise to his late friend to act as guardian to the man’s now-orphaned daughter. CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF THE DUKE picks up with young Analise Crewe, only eighteen and never presented in court, whose dream is to be a published authoress. The last thing she wants is a ducal guardian, but it turns out he’s exactly what she needs. Whether he needs her is a different matter.

If you like fairytale retellings, you could be tempted to think of Beauty and the Beast. Deckard, or Dex, has scars from his time in the army, he lives alone but for staff, and he has quarrelled with his remaining family. Analise, shortened to Ana, is a breath of fresh air in the London townhouse and later, the damp castle. The romantic girl has half-written a fantasy tale but can’t find a publisher, and she’s living in a mean boarding house while fending off the interests of the madam down the road. Dex, when he eventually finds Ana, can provide her with a safe home, a lady chaperone and a dowry.

The chapters start with a few lines from the creative girl’s fairytale, but it’s not necessary to read them as the plot keeps moving along fine. I really could not see why Ana didn’t wish to be a debutante, as it would give her so much material and respectability. What she actually doesn’t want is to be married off. Eighteen does seem very young, as she would not come of age until twenty-one. Of course, even in Georgette Heyer books, girls were married early to titled men who needed heirs.  

I won’t go into the later part of the story, but suffice to say it’s an adult read which seems completely at variance with the schoolgirl behaviour of Ana in the first half. I mean that literally, as she’d walked out of finishing school when the fees weren’t being paid. But a Heyer novel would hardly have mentioned the brothel down the road, though a Barbara Cartland might.

Lenora Bell has made a habit of writing about dukes, probably covering more dukedoms than actually exist, and CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF THE DUKE is second in a series called The Thunderbolt Club. I love that she goes strongly into the damage to society from the wars which raged across Europe for twenty years. Dex may be scarred, but he’s not the only one, and potential brides had fewer marriageable men. This is a historical romance worthy of that title.