Tracy’s review of Lady Maggie’s Secret Scandal (The Duke’s Daughters #2) (Windham #5) by Grace Burrowes

Maggie Windham, oldest of the Windham sisters and a by-blow from His Grace’s pre-marital wild oats, finds herself in desperate needs of an investigator to help her retrieve a missing reticule. Benjamin Hazlit knows the Windham family secrets, and can be trusted to keep them to himself, so Maggie turns to Benjamin, though it means ignoring his too-broad shoulders, his too-knowing smile… and his too-skilled kisses.

As Benjamin starts the search for Maggie’s missing purse, he realizes two things: First, whatever was in that purse, its loss has Maggie not just rattled, but terrified. Second, Benjamin will go to any lengths to see Maggie’s peace of mind restored, even if it means he must keep himself in very close proximity to the shy, secretive lady who says she wants nothing to do with him.

Maggie Windham wants to find her reticule. It seems like a simple procedure but no matter how hard she looks she cannot seem to find it. She employs the skills of Benjamin Hazlit who has worked for her father before and is good at finding things and ferreting out information. At first Benjamin thinks that Maggie is cracked in the head for employing him to find something as simple as a purse but as he investigates further he realizes that there’s much more going on with Maggie than meets the eye.

Maggie and Benjamin start spending more and more time together under the guise of Benjamin seeking information about Maggie’s reticule and eventually Benjamin falls in love. He manages to get Maggie on a picnic and asks her to marry him. Maggie decided a long time ago that she will never marry and she’s not about to capitulate with Benjamin – even though she so wants to. One thing leads to another and they are soon in a very compromising position. Not long after tête-à-tête they are discovered by a huge gossip monger. Benjamin convinces Maggie to agree to a “fake” engagement A) because of their being found and B) because Maggie might be pregnant considering their activities. Maggie is still trying to hide something from Benjamin and the rest of her family and he can’t quite get her to trust him enough to tell what it is. How can he convince her to marry him if she can’t trust him?

This is my first book written by Ms. Burrowes. I did start smack dab in the middle of two series but I didn’t feel completely in the dark. Though there was much talk of and interaction with Maggie’s family I thought that the book worked fine as a standalone.

In this story Maggie is 30 years old and firmly on the shelf – exactly where she wants to be. She has really cut herself off from everything except her family and then only when she has to. She’s established her monies and has no need to depend on anyone. Despite what she thought she still needed someone in her life to look after her as she had been looking after her family for so long. When it came to the mysterious reasons behind it all I was a bit frustrated. We didn’t learn the cause of Maggie’s self-induced confinement until much later in the book – almost when Benjamin finds out. As the reader I would have liked to have been privy to the information so that I could maybe sympathize with her and understand her a bit better. She had very good intentions but sometimes you need to lean on someone else to help get you through the bad times – this was the case for Maggie.

As much as I liked Benjamin in this book I really didn’t feel like I knew him all that well at the end of the book. He was wonderful with his cousin and of course uber terrific with Maggie but who was he? He had protected his sisters (who lived out of London) from a scandal many years before (another story that was no dwelt on) which made him a hero in my eyes. He seemed like a good person and I liked what I saw on page but I never got a true feeling for what was deep down.

Despite a couple of issues with the book I really liked the overall result. Ms. Burrowes gave me a story that I could really get in to and that’s always a plus for any book. I’ll definitely be reading more books in this series in the future.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Series:

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This book is available from Sourcebooks Casablanca. You can buy it here or here in e-format.