Handsome, charming, and heir to a powerful Viscount, Christopher “Kit” Featherton is everything a woman could want—except interested in marriage. So when he hears that someone on his estate near the Scottish border is claiming to be his wife, Kit sets off to investigate.

Since her parents’ death, Lady Mary Tolliver has been hounded by her cousin, a fortune-hunting fool after her inheritance. Refusing to settle for anything less than love, Mary escapes to the isolated estate of rakish bachelor, Kit Featherton. Knowing he prefers Court to the country, she believes she will be safe. But when Kit unexpectedly returns, her pretend marriage begins to feel seductively real…

Lady Mary is a quiet, unassuming woman who is being stalked by her cousin, Gawain. Gawain is being prompted by his mother to marry Mary so that he can get her trust fund. Despite attempts by Mary and her brother to contact Gawain’s father, Mary’s uncle, they have been unsuccessful in getting him to explain why he is pushing Gawain on her.

After two years of moving from place to place Mary’s grandmother comes up with a scheme to place her at the home of someone that Gawain doesn’t know so that he can’t find her (why they didn’t place her in some out of the way place before that is beyond me). In order to do this, however, she needs to act like she is married to the man of the house – a Mr. Featherton. Mary knows of a Mr. Featherton but is assured that this particular Featherton is unknown to her. After almost a year by herself Mr. Featherton shows up and is righteously angry that someone would claim to be married to him. Turns out that Mary does know this Mr. Featherton and even had her eye on him during her one and only Season unfortunately he didn’t seem to notice her at all.

Kit Featherton is the epitome of the proper gentleman. He is angry when he finds out that someone is posing as his wife but when he finds out it’s Mary he calms down. He has been looking for her constantly for the past two seasons and has always been enamored with her. He now sees that as so many people believe them married there is nothing to do but marry Mary. Unfortunately Mary is determined to have a Season and to fall in love. She wants the romance, etc. Kit and Mary have misunderstanding after misunderstanding as neither knows how to act around the other. Fortunately fate steps in and the thin veil that had been hiding their feelings finally comes down.

This was a very pleasant book. Mary was kind and giving and Kit was all that was honorable and gentlemanly. Unfortunately that didn’t make for an overly exciting book. While the story was good and well written, it just didn’t make me want to turn page after page. I got frustrated with both the MC’s as they just were so prickly and honor bound with each other. I mean, Kit wouldn’t even think of kissing Mary until they were betrothed. Again, not overly exciting.

Gawain was really in the story peripherally. We read about him several times and his quest to find Mary once he had lost her but other than that he didn’t turn out to be too much of a villain.

There was a secondary love story within the book. It was about a man and a woman who had fallen in love when they were teens but her father had kept them apart. It was a bit complicated with them marrying and then being told it wasn’t legal when it actually was. He also had 2 children he had never seen as he’d left for America. While a sweet story it was a bit odd to be plunked down in the middle of this book. It almost felt like filler as Mary and Kit had already gotten together and got their HEA. Once they declared their love the book should have been over (imho) but we had this extra story to read.

Though the story wasn’t what I typically look for and like in a regency romance novel it was still a decent read.

Rating: 3 out of 5