Outspoken Cassandra Pomfret has just arrived back in London and she's already gotten her father's back up. In fact, her latest stunt means that her sister Hyacinth, who absolutely loves the social whirl, can't go out until Cassandra is married. And that is completely antithetical to anything that Cassandra wants. So she runs away. Or tries to. But she's throw off track (and off her carriage) when the Duke of Ashmont discharges a gun as she is riding by.
Lucius (more often called Ashmont) is disgustingly drunk. He almost killed his best friend over pride. And frustration. Because Ashmont went to all the trouble of finding a woman, courting her for weeks, and then Ripley stole her. On their wedding day. I can see how that might be frustrating. But now there's this redhead and she's traveling with the famous Tom O'Keeffe. The same O'Keeffe who was almost trampled to death on the racetrack who is now struggling to breathe because Ashmont wasn't sober. Luckily, Ashmont and his two friends often raise hell in the town and they have a doctor more or less on retainer (in fact, the whole town tends to forgive them because they overpay for any mischief that they cause.) And that means that Ashmont has more time with Cassandra. But that doesn't mean that Cassandra wants more time with him.
I loved that Chase circumvented the obvious route of Cassandra being ruined by Ashmont. At least the first time. I didn't love Ashmont. I think it was true to character for him to be a little slow on the uptake (he had never really had to work for anything before) but he was a little annoying throughout most of the book. A nice addition to the series... now hopefully we'll finally figure out what's going on with Alice.
ARC kindly provided by Avon and Harper Voyager and NetGalley
Opinions are my own
I have taken a couple of restorative yoga classes and done one teacher training but figured you can never have too much information about ways to relax and restore my energy. In those classes, I had not always enjoyed holding poses for long periods but figured it was probably something that I needed as someone whose mind races pretty much nonstop. I requested this book at the beginning of the year little realizing how much new ways to relax would be needed.
