Book review
This was a beautiful story. I would recommend it to anyone who loves historical romance.
One the eve of the girl’s wedding, she is walking her dog when she sees a gazebo where the guy, Alistair, is fucking a woman. The girl, Jessica, wants to run away, but he tells her to stay and she stays to watch. The woman he is fucking doesn’t know the girl is there and she is paying the guy to fuck her. They are attracted to each other, but she has an abusive and controlling father who decided her betrothed before she was even properly presented and didn’t really have much of a season. The father cut her with a switch and was somehow responsible for both her mother’s death and her deafness in her left ear. She was the diamond of the season, though. Seven years later, her husband, Benedict, has been dead for a year. They had a really good relationship. They loved each other and she could speak her mind with him. She wants to go to Jamaica to see her plantation that her husband left her. Her brother-in-law, who is the guy’s best friend, sets it up do that the guy will accompany and help her on her journey. The brother-in-law doesn’t know that the guy likes the girl. The guy begins courting the girl on the boat. They get together because they still have chemistry from their encounter seven years ago. The girl was reluctant to begin an affair with the guy, but he actually wants something longer. On the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death, he makes her come several times with his mouth. Their relationship progresses so much that when they land and he builds a miniature of the gazebo in which they had their encounter seven years ago, she proposes to him. He has been in love with her ever since he saw her. That is why he has been absent from England for a long time. He didn’t want to see her married to another guy. She can speak to him in a way she couldn’t with Benedict because she is even able to talk about politics and business with the guy. When they come back to England, they find that his older brother has died. He is now the only heir to his family’s title. However, she is barren. Her dead husband was able to have a child with a mistress prior to their marriage. A noble’s responsibility is to have heirs. She thinks she should leave him because she cannot give him heirs. However, they find out that his older brother’s wife is now pregnant, conceived before the brother died. The couple’s love will only continue to grow because he divulged all his secrets and bad parts to her early on so that if they were to break up, it would be before their separation would hurt more. He is a bastard because her mother cheated on her husband when he couldn’t perform in the bedroom(?) His father loves his mother, so he gives the guy some land in Jamaica alone with the least seaworthy ship. He needed a lot of money so he became known for taking on any challenge or bet. He knows he is handsome, and increased his bedroom skills so that he could whore himself out. In the beginning, he liked it because he was a randy young guy. However, he saw how degrading it was to him because now he was nothing more than a commodity. He had a rocky relationship with his parents because his dad is upset at his mother’s cheating. However, when they saw how much he and the girl loved each other, even though she is 2 years older, his more approved the marriage and said that she loved him and that he should never doubt it.
The girl’s brother-in-law, Michael, is actually in love with the girl’s sister, Hester. However, she is married to Regmont. In the beginning, they were madly in love and had sex in many public places. However, when he drinks, he beats her. Afterwards, he would be remorseful, something her father wasn’t. In the end, Hester lost the love she once had in her husband. She had used contraceptives to prevent pregnancy, but he doesn’t limit his sex with her to the nighttime. She gets pregnant and wants to retire to the countryside to protect her baby because she can’t take his beatings with the child. However, he refuses. Michael is now the heir to his family’s title since his older brother, Benedict, is dead and did not leave any legitimate heirs. He is hounded by debutantes to marry. He is setting with jealousy over Hester’s husband. He challenges her husband to a friendly bout of boxing. However, Hester hints at his abuse by detailing his fighting style and aggressiveness. She gives him a kerchief with an H sewn in the corner. Michael is enraged that her husband isn’t treating her well and knocked him out in the boxing match in less than a minute. One day, the husband is drunk with his friends in a high-class exclusive gentlemen’s club. When Michael accidentally drops the kerchief Hester gave him and Regmont sees it, Regmont takes it from him. Michael challenges Regmont to a duel. Taylor and Blackthorne are Regmont’s seconds, and Baybury(Alistair) and Merrick are Michael’s. (The three seconds besides Alistair are just random names in the book.) Alistair and Michael are best friends.
“So you kill him in a duel. Then what?” Alistair spurred his mount away from Remington’s. “You avoid persecution by fleeing the country. Your family suffers without you. Hester hates you for taking her husband from her. Jessica becomes furious with me for being even remotely attached to this mess. Will you feel better then?”
“You’ve no notion of what this is like! How it feels to know she needs looking after and I cannot be the one to do it!”
“Don’t I?” Alistair asked softly, glancing aside at him.
“No. You do not. Whatever envy you may have harbored for my brother’s good fortune, you at least knew he cared for Jessica and saw to her comfort. He made her happy. You did not have to wonder at every minute of every day if he was raising his hand to her. If she was terrified or hurt or—”
Alistair yanked so hard on his reins that his horse reared up with a whinny of protest. The clap of hooves to cobblestone was like a thundercrack in the darkness. The gelding pranced in agitation, turning completely around. “What did you say?”
“He beats her. I know he does. From things I’ve observed, and things my mother has observed as well.”
“Damn you.” The fury in Alistair’s tone was unmistakable. “And you allowed him to leave? What if he’s at home now?”
Michael’s own wrath boiled over. “What can I do? She is his wife. I have no recourse.”
“Jessica is there! And her greatest terror is a man’s rage.”
“What the devil—?”
“Hadley (the girls’ father) was abusive,” Alistair bit out, pulling his horse around. “He punished the girls as liberally and as painfully as possible.”
Michael’s gut twisted. “Jesus.”
Alistair kicked his mount into a gallop, bending low over the horse’s arched neck and weaving recklessly through the busy streets. Michael followed close behind him.”
When they rush to the girls, Regmont was just about to beat Jessica for intervening when he was accusing Hester of cuckholding him. Hester uses a fireplace poker to hit the back of Regmont’s head. He had hit Hester in their argument and she loses the baby. The doctor is stitching the back of Regmont’s head when he wakes up. He goes in a rage when the doctor tells him the baby is gone. He goes into Hester’s room and locks the door. There is a gunshot and Hester screaming. Michael tries to break down the door and Alistair helps him. Together, they are able to take it down. They see that Regmont has shot himself. Alistair prevents Jessica from entering the room and tells her it is a sight she doesn’t want to see. Prior to this, Hester was already depressed and not eating. She was unintentionally starving herself to death. With her sister’ return, she had been eating and drinking more. When Regmont had entered her room, she screamed for him to shoot her and end the torment she had been living through. Losing the baby had been the last straw. However, when he saw her torment, he killed himself, selfish to the end.
Two years later, Michael and Jessica are helping Hester heal. Since she is much better now, Alistair suggests they finally go on their honeymoon. Jessica and Alistair summer with his parents while the parents live there year round. Alistair had asked his father and the father says now is the perfect time when he is still fit and able to take care of his duties. The story ends with Alistair telling Jessica to find him with a note, she finds him playing violin in their bedchamber. They dare each other to not make a sound while they make love with an open window. Both persons do their best to make the other scream.
- Goodreads rating – 3.88
- SUMMARY – Patricia’s Book Summaries