When The Duchess Says Yes. By Isabella Bradford (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
This is a Georgian romance. Lady Elizabeth Wylder is pledged to be married to the Duke of Hawkesworth but neither is excited at the prospect of an arranged marriage to a stranger. Inevitably, they find they are attracted to each other and fall in love, but their happiness is threatened by Hawke's belief that it cannot last. I did not like the feeling that you were waiting for things to fail. They didn't, but for me, it made uncomfortable reading. Lovely Lizzie is waiting for her betrothed, another Duke, who left England for Naples 10 years before and would never have returned if his father hadn't threatened in his will to cut Hawke, the duke in question, off without a penny if he didn't marry the young woman arranged for him. This duke is unlike the first, and unlike his father. His father was a political powerhouse who kept a mistress while remaining amicable, if estranged, from his wife. Hawke, however, loves art, specifically luminous paintings of any style or age, as long as they provide more joy than the nasty daubs popular in England. He loves his Titian and his Tintoretto as much as he loves Naples, and he plans to return to Naples with them as soon as he's done his duty and sired an heir. Unfortunately, though he and his wife fall in love, it takes him a while to realize that, perhaps, leaving her for Naples isn't really what he wants to do anymore.Another lovely book by Bradford. This one is equally charming and possibly even more poignant. I found myself liking this hero even more than the last. What I like best about these books is that the characters are all themselves, and unique. I'm quite impressed that Bradford could make me love Charlotte and March, the protagonists of the first book, and now make me love Lizzie and Hawke, and their relationship, in this second book even more.
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