They call him the Devil Earl—a scoundrel and accused murderer who grew up on the violent London streets. A proper young lady risks more than her reputation when consorting with the roguishly handsome Lucian Langdon, but Lady Catherine Mabry believes she has no choice. To protect those she loves, she would do anything—even strike a bargain with the devil himself.
Lucian desires respectability and a wife above all else, but the woman of his choosing lacks the social graces to be accepted by the aristocracy. Catherine can help Lucian gain everything he wants. But what she asks for in exchange will put their very lives in jeopardy. When danger closes in, Catherine discovers a man of immense passion and he discovers a woman of immeasurable courage. As secrets from his dark past are revealed, Lucian begins to question everything he knows to be true, including the yearnings of his own heart.
For some reason, I’ve really been into historicals lately. This is the last book of my historical run. I’ve never read Lorraine Heath, but the blurb intrigued me.
Catherine Mabry hasn’t forgotten the night five years before when she locked eyes with the Devil Earl. Lucian Langdon has always intrigued her, but since that night she hasn’t been able to forget him. Now she needs help that she thinks only he can provide. See, she needs someone killed and she Lucian is the most unscrupulous person she knows. That means that he’d immediately agree, yes?
That was one of the things I didn’t like about this book. Catherine really didn’t know Lucian at all, yet she felt comfortable going and asking him to “dispatch” someone. Naïve much?
Luke Langdon has never believed that he was the rightful heir to the title, even after his grandfather plucked him off the streets and acknowledged him. Not only did he take Luke in, but he took in the friends that were Luke’s only family. He’s never denied that he’s far from what a proper Earl should be, yet he finds that he can’t let the man who claimed him as his grandson down. When Catherine approaches him and asks him to kill someone for her, he’s incredulous, amused, and insulted all at once. After he turns her away he starts thinking that Catherine might be the only person that can help him get the woman he loves agree to marry him.
So now Luke has agreed to dispatch the person Catherine thinks needs dispatching as long as she tutors his almost-fiancée in navigating society as a Countess. That sounds like a fair trade, does it not?
I immediately realized that Luke is fooling himself about Frannie. While they do love each other, they are not “in love”. They are more like brother and sister. Luke hasn’t admitted that to himself yet because he desperately wants the peace that he thinks being married to Frannie will bring. The fact that he’s attracted to Catherine is nothing more than an annoyance as far as he’s concerned.
Both Catherine and Luke think that they can keep their attraction to the other under wraps. They don’t take into account what happens when you’re in close contact with a person as often as they are. Every night Luke escorts Catherine to the club where Frannie works in the office. Every night Luke escorts Catherine back home. Soon their attraction becomes too much to ignore and they realize they can no longer fight it.
So while the blurb seemed intriguing, the pace of the book was a little slow. I think Catherine was supposed to come across as fiercely independent and she just came across as blah. I understood why she went to Luke in the first place, even admired the fact that she was taking action. I just didn’t like the way she assumed that because he was the “Devil Earl” he would have no compunction about killing another human being. I suppose it was supposed to be endearing that she could be so strong, yet naïve, but it wasn’t. By the time Catherine and Luke actually hit the sack, I was rather apathetic.
My annoyance with Catherine aside, it was a rather entertaining read. I was more interested in the secondary characters that were introduced than the hero and heroine.
4 out of 5.
This book is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.