Loving a Lost Lord
What happens to aristocratic boys who rebel against the strict mores of the English nobility? In this charming debut to The Lost Lords series we learn the answer: they go to Westerfield Academy, Lady Agnes’s school for unconventional youths. The year is 1812. Westerfield’s first student, Adam Lawford, Duke of Ashton, who is now a respected member of the peerage despite his Anglo-Indian heritage, has lost his memory in a steamboat accident. When Adam awakes he is relieved to find that he was dragged ashore near his own home, in Cumberland, and is safe in the delectable arms of his wife. There is just one problem: Mariah Clarke falsely claimed her injured guest as her husband in order to rid herself of an obnoxious suitor. Mariah wishes to end the deception but fears that, if she acknowledges the truth, her patient may never recover his wits.
Mariah and Adam are both very likeable characters. The complex plotting required to bring the story to resolution is saved from absurdity by Mariah’s amused exclamation, “I feel as if I’ve wandered into a Restoration comedy.” This book was such an enjoyable read that I eagerly await my next frolic with a “Lost Lord.”
