Something Wonderful

Author: Judith McNaught
Published: April 1988 (Pocket Books)
Category: Historical Romance
Rating: 5/10

Arrogant nobleman gets rescued from certain death-by-highway-robbery by a young girl from the country wearing an old suit of armor and when all is said and done, must marry her. Sounds like a good start right? I certainly thought so, and it was a lovely start to what could have been a flawless romance. Unfortunately, the followthrough was not what I expected.

The cover blurb didn't tell me that Jordan Townsende, Duke of Hawthorne, would be attacked just four days after his marriage and assumed dead. He was survived by his wife, Alexandra Lawrence, new Duchess of Hawthorne, ignorant to society's rules of decorum. To be honest, I glazed over most of the part where Alexandra is on her own. To me, the building of the relationship between hero and heroine is vastly important, and it was jerked away from me just when it was getting good.

Jordan returns after heroically saving a bunch of people he was impressed with (sold to work on a navy vessel), about thirteen months after his disappearance. He finds that his wife is about to marry his cousin, Anthony, the new Duke of Hawthorne, and rushes in to stop the wedding. He also finds that his wife isn't all smiles about his return. Automatically, he thinks two awful things: 1. His charmingly innocent country girl of a wife is actually power hungry and wants to continue holding the title of Duchess of Hawthorne or 2. She's in love with his cousin for real.

While Jordan and Alexandra are hashing out the details of their marriage, someone's making attempts on Jordan's life... most likely the same person who got Jordan impressed a year before. Alexandra keeps going on with her "I will not love my husband even though I really love him" stance and Jordan barrels his way through re-romancing his wife. That means he's really brusque and arrogant all over again, not acting like the man Alexandra fell in love with. To compound the problem, Fawkes, the man hired to investigate the attempts on Jordan's life believes that Alexandra and Anthony have the most to gain by offing the duke. Anthony would gain the dukedom and the duchess.

Of course, Jordan believes Fawkes and doesn't bother discussing things with Alexandra, even believing that she's an accessory to the murder plot at the very end when he's faced with the true perpetrators. I wanted to smack him upside the head! And of course, it takes Alexandra's near-death to snap him back to a loving husband. Ugh. Talk about wanting what you can't have.

Agh! So frustrating and aggravating when it could've been so much better! It's not like the writing was bad; the story was awful.