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has nothing to lose if he is lying aside from her virtue, . .
Jack Worth lives a life of roguish adventure, moneymaking schemes and everchanging women, He never thought he'd wantto settle down and find a wife, . . until he inherits a noble title and estate without the riches,
Distant cousin Laurel is the unwitting heiress to all the money, Brought up in a Spanish convent, and longing for a family of her own, she's prepared to enter into a marriage of convenience.
Finding a home in Jack's arms is more than she had ever dreamed of, but deception and mistaken identities test their newfound love to the limit.

okay nothing terribly objectionable, but nothing to grab the attention either, alright hero. pretty good heroine. reasonable to moderate emotional/plot journey etc, . . the best is the lastpages where laurel figures out who she is and jack stops feeling threatened by laurel's competency.
"Perhaps it was true that love and hate were together the same side of the coin, and the opposite of both is indifference.
One could not hate so devoutly if love was not involved somehow, " Not as good as I expected as there is very little happening here, Most of the focus is on the couple getting to know each other and while their love was never in doubt, we get to see their adaptation to married life with only a bit of drama.


While neither is actually annoying and each has his or her faults which we get to see, it was not really a huge issue and for most of the book, as both tries to make this relationship work, it is pretty uneventful and boring.


I think main issue is my distaste for deception, and while I see the need for H to do this, as we know what h is like, I think it was never necessary for him to do it in the first place and it just makes it harder to warm up to him.
He is v loving and devoted to h though, so it didn't bother me as much but we just know this is all going to go all awry.


Our h is actually not as docile as we would have thought given her background, and she adepted to her new life and H quickly.
While I understand her actions, I also find it odd that she wasn't as content as she seems to be to me.
Yet she still is v likeable with her directness and gentle caring nature,

The whole book is more about how you reconcile the person you think you quickly fall for to the person she or he really is, warts and all.
And howpersons can make a marriage work by making adjustments and allowance for each other,

While it is a v wise approach to a marriage, especially a marriage that happens so quickly betweenstrangers, it isn't really mightily interesting enough to engage reader's attention with this alone.
There isn't much happening till a bit towards its end and by then, it is a bit too little too late for me.
Jack Worth is a rake, gambler, and allaround libertine, who suddenly finds himself in the extraordinary position of being the new Earl of Elderidge, a penury title inherited from a distant cousin.
Though all the entailed estates and the responsibilities of his tenants fall upon him, all of the previous Earl's money have been given to his daughter, Laurel Worth, who was sent to a Spanish convent soon after her birth.
Suffice it to say, Jack desperately needs money to keep the estates afloat, so he forms a plan to seduce Laurel and marry her to gain her inheritance, a plan that was heavily endorsed by the family solicitor whose reason for doing so is due to a deceit he made long ago.


Laurel has grown up confined but wellcared for in the convent, with only a slight memory of her parents.
Upon leaving the convent, Laurel becomes a governess to unruly Spanish brats, though she longs to start her own family.
Just when she is molested by yet another employer, Jack comes and saves her, taking her back to England as his "dear cousin.
" Immediately, he proposes a marriage of convenience, his stated reason to protect Laurel's reputation as they would have traveled alone on the trip.
Laurel agrees, and thus their marriage of convenience begins on deceit, as Jack neglected to tell Laurel of her inheritance.


There are frankly too many plot holes and characterization problems in this story for me to enjoy it.
Despite the author's attempt to show that Jack had a conscience, that his guilt was overwhelming when he deceived Laurel for his own gain, he never did much to redeem himself.
If anything, he became worse as the story progressed, Upon their initial meeting, Jack was intrigued by Laurel's hidden passion under an unassuming exterior, As he learned more about her, she showed intelligence, humor, and kindness, all of which surprised but pleased him.
However, he behaved like an arrogant lordofthemanor, not letting Laurel even see the household accounts when she wanted to make herself useful with her good accounting ability.
First, he didn't want her to know he was using her money, and second, he simply didn't think that was Laurel's place as a female.
His chauvinistic attitudes were immensely grating, and worse, he does not become much better by the end of the story.
The highlight of his faults would have to be when he accused Laurel of deceiving him big spoiler here: The former Earl's daughter had died as a babe, and the family solicitor sent his own daughter, Laurel, to the convent.
So Laurel is not the true daughter of the former Earl, Laurel had done no such thing, but Jack accused ayearold of perpetrating a grand scheme against him when he was the one who sought to take her money!

By this point, I could barely stomach the story.
What comes after is Laurel finally growing a backbone and running away, before Jack could have her thrown in jail.
Jack, suddenly realizing how much he wants Laurel, went chasing after her across Europe, where he had to confront a sex trader who was randomly thrown in the story as a last minute adversary, and then it's happilyeverafter for the two.
While he was trying to find Laurel, Jack complained of Laurel's faults yet could barely acknowledge any of his own.
He admits that were she to not have run away, he likely would have thrown her to jail, believing she to have tricked him in marriage.


I would not recommend this book, There is barely a plot, and the hero is just downright overbearing and chauvinistic, Laurel is better, though she lacked a personality throughout most of the story and suddenly became brave enough to run away from her accusing love near the end.
All things considered, it is understandable to not wait for someone to arrest you on false charges, This is the first book I've read by the author, and may just be the last, I thought this was a cute, quick read, It had a few surprises in there that I didn't see coming at all!! I do wish there were more backstory on the main characters amp more to the epilogue!! Other than that.
. /Stars!! Lyns foray into book length fiction began in the earlys, and she signed her first contract with Harlequin Historicals on Valentines Day,.
Flowers, candy, kisses, and a book sale, too! There will never be another day quite like that one! she says.
I always loved to write and even got excited about doing reports and term papers, I neglected other homework just to make that short story for English class as riveting as I possibly could.
Even so, she never really considered writing as a career until much later, Instead, Lyn studied art and worked in Europe while she visited the places she now writes about in her historicals.
At that time, she was painting those sights and selling pictures, While working at Boeing as an illustrator, s Lyn's foray into book length fiction began in the early 's, and she signed her first contract with Harlequin Historicals on Valentine's Day,.
"Flowers, candy, kisses, and a book sale, too! There will never be another day quite like that one!" she says.
"I always loved to write and even got excited about doing reports and term papers, I neglected other homework just to make that short story for English class as riveting as I possibly could.
"Even so, she never really considered writing as a career until much later, Instead, Lyn studied art and worked in Europe while she visited the places she now writes about in her historicals.
At that time, she was painting those sights and selling pictures, While working at Boeing as an illustrator, she had the idea of trying to freelance book covers, Since she liked to paint faces and figures, romance novels seemed a logical choice, However, the field of cover art is highly competitive and she discovered it would take a great deal of research and preparation.
While studying the market on covers, she became firmly hooked on the contents of the books and decided to try writing instead.
"Definitely one of my better decisions," she admits, She is still an avid romance reader and manages to read an average of four per week in addition to one or two books outside the genre.
Lyn feels a special affinity for England and Scotland with their wonderful castles and intriguing history, The American South and Southwest are her favorite settings for contemporary adventures, She and her husband, Allen, both natives of Georgia, live in North Alabama near their two children and four grandchildren.
"The family contributes to my research," Lyn says, "They buy me books,

clip articles, sketch costumes, and sometimes act out scenes, Even the grandchildren serve as inspiration for the younger characters, " sitelink.