With seven troublesome half sisters to marry off, Duncan, the Earl of Eads, has one problem: he’s broke.
With the prospect of marriage to the pompous local curate, Miss Teresa Finch-Freeworth has one dream: to wed instead the handsome Highlander she saw at a ball.
How does a desperate lady convince a reluctant laird that she’s the perfect bride for him? She strikes a wager! If she can find seven husbands for seven sisters, the earl must marry her.
Duncan has no intention of wedding the meddlesome maiden, and he gives her a deadline even the most audacious matchmaker can’t meet—one month. But Teresa sets terms, too: with each bridegroom she finds, the earl must pay her increasingly intimate rewards . . .
Teresa is a bit desperate. She longs for something more than living as the local vicar’s wife but it seems that is exactly what her parents have planner for her. She can’t stop thinking about a certain Scottish Earl that she saw in a ballroom a year and a half earlier. When she hears that that same earl is in London she does some fancy talking and gets herself to London.
Teresa approaches the Earl of Eads in his flat where he’s living with his seven sisters. She proposes marriage to him and he all but laughs in her face and refuses. He has no plans to marry at all and he is just in London to try and find husbands for his seven sisters. He truly doesn’t hold out much hope as they’re not exactly quiet and agreeable but he tries to be optimistic. Teresa offers him a wager (one he has no plan on going through with) and that starts the ball rolling with Teresa trying to get to her end game – win the earl.
This is just a charming novella that I so enjoyed reading. Teresa is quirky and cute and determined to make her own fate. Duncan is stoic but yet he also remembers Teresa from that ballroom and he’s not been able to get her out of his mind. He doesn’t want to be pulled in by her but he totally is. When it happens it’s oh, so good and definitely worth reading about.
The sisters are fun as well and though we don’t get to know them all that well (and we didn’t need to in order to move the story along) they all seemed to make matches that would last. The story all takes place in a month so it’s pretty fast but it didn’t seemed rushed if that makes sense.
I didn’t read the other novels in this series but I didn’t need to in order to read this one and thoroughly enjoy it.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Sounds a little different, poor guy, 7 women to marry off! Thanks for the review.