Leslie LaFoy, Her Scandalous Marriage

Her Scandalous Marriage

Leslie LaFoy

St. Martin's, May 2006, $6.99, 352 pp.

ISBN: 0312347707

Drayton McKenzie enters the London dressmaking shop of Caroline Dutton with a scowl on his face. In spite of his frown Caroline ponders how good he would taste thinking carnal thoughts. Drayton introduces himself as the Duke of Ryland. He informs that her father, his late distant relation, ignored his illegitimate offspring when he was alive; but blackmailed Drayton from the grave, with control of his inheritance to turn the trio into ladies married to proper aristocrats. Caroline, as the only adult of the three he assumes is going to be the most difficult, as she is set in her ways.

Caroline reluctantly agrees to become his student at his country estate. As he trains her to be a lady, Drayton finds he also desires her. However, trying to do the right thing by her, he prepares lady Caroline for the marriage mart, knowing her large dowry will hide much of her past, but if he is not careful he will fail because he is falling in love with his ward; she encourages him, scandal be damned.

This lighthearted regency romance will provide plenty of pleasure to sub-genre fans, as the pompous and proper Drayton finds he is receiving lessons in love and life from his impish pupil similar in a way to Pygmalion. The antics of the lead duo make for a fun read, as he loses his skirmishes with his attraction for her, while she thought he would be a carnal delight from the moment he scowled and growled in her shop. Leslie LaFoy provides a fine historical that readers will enjoy.