Stephanie Laurens, Four in Hand

Four in Hand

Stephanie Laurens

HQN, Dec 2008

ISBN: 9780373773091

After a decade as a womanizing viscount with a temper when disturbed, Max Rotherbridge is now the Duke of Twyford. To him it is no big deal as he will continue his prime role as the most notorious aristocratic rake.

The thirty-four years old aristocrat will soon realize how wrong he is about his new inheritance. Besides the title and all its affluence and influence, he learns the hard way of a slightly different bequest when a young Miss Caroline Twinning visits him. He angrily goes to see her and she assumes he is too young and obviously rakish to be the Duke she needs to see. However, he is so she plows on by informing him she and her three sisters are his wards. Making matters worse, Max is attracted to the courageous Caro who diverts his temper from her pretty younger siblings onto her.

This reprint of a 1990s Regency romance is a forerunner of the talented Stephanie Laurens multiple stories like the Bastian Club and the Cynsters. However, unlike those sagas broken into several novels each, 'Four In Hand' is overwhelmed by a cast belonging in a Cecil De Mille movie with several relationships making it difficult to focus on the prime one. Still this is an intriguing tale that showcases the talent of Ms. Laurens as she juggles several romances.

Harriet Klausner