Lady Sarah Frampton may be the daughter of a duke with a sizable dowry, but she’s known as the Watching Wallflower and is on her way to be firmly on the shelf. No one knows that behind her impeccable manners, the quiet and ever-observant Lady Sarah is in fact the author of a series of highly successful erotic novels. As The Lady of Dubious Quality, the virginal Lady Sarah uses the knowledge she’s acquired from illicit French novels to write out all her sexual fantasies while her mother believes her to be deeply devoted to journal writing and keeping up her correspondence. When her publisher tells her that someone is trying to unmask the identity of the Lady of Dubious Quality, she starts to consider whether marriage might not be prudent to protect her from prying. What better candidate than the handsome and intelligent country vicar she’s been growing closer to?
The vicar in question, Jeremy Cleland, is in London because his father, the deeply moralistic Earl of Hutton, has tasked him with tracking down and unmasking, you guessed it, The Lady of Dubious Quality. Jeremy didn’t even want to take holy orders and become a vicar, but as the third son, he doesn’t really have the finances or independence to go his own way, even though he’s quite miserable with his vocation and struggles daily to control his desires. A while back, his cousin, the scandalous Vicount Marwood gave him one of the Lady’s recent books, and Jeremy has in fact been reading all of them and appreciating them rather a lot. He doesn’t really see what harm the books do, but with the treat of losing his allowance entirely, he sets about trying to figure out who the author of the erotica is. He feels an immediate affinity with the clever Lady Sarah Frampton, but knows that as the only daughter of a duke, she’s much too far above him in rank to ever settle for a lowly country vicar, son of an earl or not.
Not realising that the man she’s decided to marry for protection is in fact the same man who’s been tasked with unmasking her and who could absolutely ruin her in the eyes of society, Lady Sarah proposes to Jeremy. They get married by special licence and while Lady Sarah’s parents are none to happy, Jeremy’s father is delighted that his son snared a lady with such an impressive family connection and dowry. The couple, after some initial difficulty, discover that they are in fact extremely compatible both in the bedroom and out of it. While a duke’s daughter, Sarah isn’t at all sorry to give up the luxuries of her father’s house or the mindless pleasures of London’s high society. Being useful as a vicar’s wife, while still able to lock herself away to write in secret works very well for her. While Jeremy’s father allows him a few weeks to enjoy his new marriage, he’s not going to let his son give up his quest for long, however. What will happen when Jeremy discovers that the woman he’s trying to track down is in fact his own wife?
More on my blog.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.