Review: Unusual historical romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 11, 2012
Catherine's father married her at a very young age to Baron Bourgeault and ever since she has been trapped in a marriage without love, tenderness and devotion, experiencing total isolation and solitude. Her only "amusement" is when the Baron invites different male guest and expects from his beautiful wife to entertain them,  however, humiliating her by encouraging their guests to overstep the social and moral boundaries. In any case, Catherine is an intelligent woman who has until now avoided any incident by handling these invitations with grace and diplomacy and without enraging her husband by direct disobedience. She supposes that there's a serious reason for her husband to invite those guests but she hasn't yet understood his real motives.To this effect Baron Bourgeault has succeeded in luring the Earl of Ashworth, Adam Stanford to his home and encourages Catherine to entertain him. Adam falls in love with Catherine who feels the same way about him and they decide to enjoy their feelings........ Both know that this is an encounter without future, however they give in to their passion, both being heartbroken when Adam leaves to go home.And then Baron Bourgeault decides to go with his beautiful wife to London, basically facilitating their relationship. What will the lover do and why is the Baron so "open-minded" about his wife's escapades?The main characters were developed richly and realistically. I didn't like Baron Bourgeault and his manipulative, abusive and sinister ways, however, towards the end I felt some  (but really only some)  compassion for his disorder and what that actually meant for him in daily life.Catherine was adorable. Maybe a bit shortsighted. I mean that a short discussion at the proper moment could've saved her and Adam a lot of pain. But had she done this, there wouldn't have been this book. No matter how unfortunate her handling in said moment, she proved that she was deeply in love with Adam and ready to sacrifice her feelings for the only purpose to give him the chance to live up to his mother's expectations.Adam could've been a rogue and a lady-killer. He's a rich bachelor from old money who could do whatever he wanted in his life. However, he's an honorable man who  chose to live as much as possible with the woman he fell in love with, trying to protect her as good as he could.  I was a bit disappointed when he accepted so quickly all the "facts" when Catherine broke up with him, without even trying to get to the bottom of her reasoning.A well-written historical romance that started off slowly but succeeded in generating interest and suspense. Just one (serious) point of criticism: The end was faaaaar to abrupt. It ended so sudden that I even checked the other books of the series to find out if there is a sequel to this one!In any case, a very nice read.