More Than A Mistress
Number 1 in series
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- €5.49
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- €5.49
Publisher Description
When Jane Ingleby interrupts a duel in London's Hyde Park, Jocelyn Dudley, Duke of Tresham, gets shot, and Jane, late for work at a milliner's workshop, loses her job. She is angry enough to demand a new job of Jocelyn, and he is angry enough to hire her - as his nurse. Her blue eyes are the sort a man could drown in - if it wasn't for her imprudence. She questions his every move, breaches his secrets and touches his soul, and soon the dangerous duke is offering her a different job - as his mistress.
Jane tries to keep it strictly business, an arrangement she is forced to accept in order to conceal a treacherous secret. Surely there is nothing more perilous than being the lover of such a man. Yet as she sees through his devilish facade and glimpses the noble heart within, she knows the greatest jeopardy of all is the rising passion that could tempt her to risk everything. . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her assured hardcover debut, Balogh (One Night for Love) serves up two Regency-era characters determined not to fall in love with each other, despite their shared aesthetic sensibilities, uncontrollable physical attraction and increasingly intimate friendship. The predictability of their predicament--they come from different social classes--is compensated for by an authentic London high society setting and the smart, sexy dialogue between Jocelyn Dudley, duke of Tresham, and Jane Ingleby, the two attractive, headstrong protagonists. Jocelyn is an avowed bachelor, rake and accomplished duelist. While preparing to fire his pistol during a duel, he is interrupted by a woman's scream urging him to stop. Jocelyn hesitates and is shot in the leg. Furious, he confronts the disruptive woman, milliner's assistant Jane, who is impudent beyond her station in accusing him of foolishly risking his life. As punishment, he insists she be his nurse for the three weeks he is recuperating. Jane is proud and feisty because, actually, she's not really a common serving girl. She's the orphan Lady Sara Illingsworth, who mistakenly believes she killed a man who was attempting to rape her. She fled her home in Cornwall for London, but without money or protection, her future seems bleak. When Tresham recovers his health, Jane agrees to stay on as his mistress, partly in order to remain hidden, but also because she is falling in love with him. Although some intrigue surfaces when Tresham's previous romantic entanglements make him the target of a husband's vengeance, the real story is the dynamic love-hate relationship between Jane and Tresham, their many obstacles to happiness parried with fiery wit and spirit.
