In Amelia Grey’s A Duke to Die For, Miss Henrietta Tweed has a problem. She’s a young, unmarried lady in Regency England whose guardians keep dying on her. If that’s not bad enough, she thinks it’s a curse an old witch placed on her that has led them each to their demise.
When she finds herself again without a guardian, she is sent to seek out the Duke Lucien Trent Blakewell, who is last on her late father’s list of those contracted to take responsibility for Henrietta until her 21st birthday. She expected an old, arrogant aristocrat who would try to marry her off as soon as possible. When she finds instead a handsome young playboy instead, Miss Tweed hopes to coax him into signing her inheritance over to her so that she can take her own future in hand and not have to rely on strangers.
What amounts to perfectly reasonable hopes in 2009, is anything but in 19th century England, especially in a romance novel. Blakewell finds himself immediately taken with his new young charge and equally conflicted. His idea of taking on a ward is finding a governess to manage a little girl. Henrietta is a full-grown and very eligible young lady who stirs his appetites in all sorts of inappropriate ways. He decides the only way to keep his control around her is to get her settled with a husband as soon as possible.
The two butt heads when Blakewell tells Henrietta in no uncertain terms that he will not sign her inheritance over to her because women could not be trusted to manage money, that she would be properly introduced to Society and married off to the most “worthy” gentleman who comes calling. Henrietta is infuriated with him, but soon comes to worry for his safety as he falls victim to the same type of deadly accidents that claimed her other guardians. She does not want to have another death on her conscience.
Article comments