Friday, November 10, 2006

Once a Mistress

Author: Rebecca Hagan Lee
Published: September 2001 (Jove)
Category: Historical Fiction
Series: Marquess of Templeton Heirs #1
Quote of Choice: Impossible, for you've made me quite breathless and dizzy.

I've returned to Rebecca Hagan Lee, and I'm so happy to be reading her again. I loved her Free Fellows League series, as each one involved a different couple but was always entertaining. There were always fantastic endings and they usually invovled some amount of intrigue because of the spying on England's behalf in the war with Napoleon.

In the Marquess of Templeton Heirs trilogy, the fifteenth Marquess of Templeton put a codicil into his will having his son provide for any of his mistresses that come forward after his death. As a true gentleman, he doesn't name the mistresses, but gives them an engraved gold locket with his likeness inside to identify them.

Andrew Ramsey, the new sixteenth marquess of Templeton (previously only Earl of Ramsey, Viscount Birmingham, and Baron Selby - what a catch for a young miss on the marriage mart!), is less than pleased to find that he has to care for his father's former ladybirds. He intends to prepare the family home for the funeral, but his solicitor informs him that one of the mistresses is living in the dowager cottage on the property, and Drew is furious. He storms out of the office without listening to the rest of the details of the will or the details about the woman living in the cottage.

It turns out this woman is no stranger to Drew. She is Kathryn Markinson, Drew's former fiancée, and stood him up on their wedding day four years previously with no given reason. She left him heartbroken, and he ran off to fight in the war against Napoleon to escape his pain. When they meet again, it's obvious that their attraction hasn't diminished with time, but their relationship has become much more complicated. Oh, and she has a son. I am not a fan of the surprise child, but his existence is part of a bigger mystery, which involves why Kathryn never showed up on their wedding day.

When I was reading this, I was disgusted at first, thinking "Eeeuw, he wants to get with his father's mistress?" But when you get into the meat of the story, you find she never loved George Ramsey in that way. He took care of her when she needed a place to live and a child to love. Kathryn was never actually George's mistress, although the reader is constantly being led to that idea.

Once Upon a Mistress was splendidly written. The romance was lovely (and a bit steamy at times! Woo!), but the mystery was a lot deeper than you'd expect. Kathryn had very good reason not to show up on their wedding day, but they get the chance to make up for it later on. Drew realizes that he was mistaken about Kathryn's character, and gives her 100% of his trust, which he was holding back on, with good reason though, after what he considered a betrayal on their first planned wedding. The dialogue was good too, and there weren't very many "ha ha" moments, but that didn't matter to me. I usually need a chunk of humor to get through a romance, but if it's a really good one, it's not necessary.

I can't wait until my copy of the second Marquess of Templeton Heirs book to come in!

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