A Wicked Bargain for the Duke: A Hazards of Dukes Novel
Thaddeus Dutton, Duke of Hasford, is unprepared for the responsibilities when he unexpectedly inherits the dukedom. As a former military officer, however, he is determined to fulfil his duty, and high on the list he compiles is a suitable wife. He decides upon Jane, an earl’s beautiful and quiet daughter, but it is her vivacious, and distractingly voluptuous, sister Lavinia with whom he is caught in a compromising situation. He proposes, she accepts (for the sake of her sister, who loves another), and both embark on a marriage neither wanted. They seem ill suited: he is staid, she rebellious. Their love-making, on the other hand, is addictively passionate, but is it enough to make a good marriage? Well, maybe not on its own, but it does encourage both to persist through difficulties.
Lavinia is spirited and perceptive, with a lively sense of humor, fierce loyalty to family despite their idiosyncrasies, and a gothic romance novelist (secretly); Thaddeus’s willingness to change is commendable; the distant echoes of Pride and Prejudice are interesting. The minor characters, however, are rather exaggerated types, especially the domineering mothers; the bedroom scenes intrusively frequent and detailed; and the plot keeps drifting towards melodrama. Uneven Victorian romance.
