Lady Georgina, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Gordon, is a little upset. Her four sisters have been married off to prominent Dukes or Earl’s and her mother won’t stop until her youngest has made an equally ambitious match. The problem is, Lady Georgina has decided that she will not marry anyone unless it is a love match. This doesn’t really gel with what her mother wants and her mother is quite formidable.

As the story begins Georgina hasn’t had her coming out yet. She’s young, vivacious and quite a political girl. She loves children, animals and just having fun and she wants to stay that way which she is sure wouldn’t happen if she married some stuffy titled man who would just want to fool around with their mistresses. Her family was a bit unconventional for the times but was still high up in society.

After Georgina comes out her mother has her sights set on marrying her off to Francis Russell, the Duke of Bedford, who is the most eligible bachelor around. But Georgina, despite a bad first meeting with him, has an attraction to Francis’ younger brother, John. Problem: John’s married.

When John’s wife passes away Georgina runs into John and offers her condolences. John is not in his right mind and is rude and abrupt. To get back at John and to make him jealous Georgina decides that she is going to go after Francis and make him ask her to marry him. Her plans work and Francis ends up falling for Georgina but she really has not desire to marry him at all. Francis is not one to give up and works out with Georgina’s mother how to convince her daughter to marry him.I have to say that I didn’t particularly care for Georgina’s mother, Jane, or Francis, the Duke of Bedford…at all. Jane was the conniving, money grubbing, elbow-rubbing, match making mother from hell and I think I would have run far, far away if she had been my mother. Francis was just a letch of the worst kind and I wanted to cut parts of his anatomy away so that he couldn’t use them any longer. They made for good reading but I just didn’t like them – they put me on edge.

I really loved Georgina and her love for life. She knew what she wanted and although most of her family just wanted her settled they understood her and let her do her thing.

I felt sorry for John Russell in most of the book. He wanted to be a good father and do was right for his children, but he was in a loveless marriage and it stopped him from being the man he truly wanted to be. Once his wife died he was racked with guilt and he still couldn’t be that ideal man. He wanted Georgina but felt that it wasn’t right to go after her since his brother was in love with her and he thought she was in love with his brother. He was a strong character though and I enjoyed reading when he was involved.

There were many miscommunications in this book that were there for a reason but they all got worked out and we got the happily ever after in the end. Besides the family stories and the love story that are written in this book there is also a huge political story involved with John and Georgina’s mother. It’s a very involved book and although not a heavy read, not a light one either. There are a lot of characters in the book and keeping them all straight was a little confusing at first. If you don’t know who the Tories or the Whigs re before you start this book you might want to look into that. (Luckily I did know who they were and could follow along nicely.)

*After reading the Author’s Note at the end of the book I discovered that Georgina and John really existed. You can read about them here although I wouldn’t recommend that until after you’ve read the book.