Review: Great book with highly charged exchanges between the H/h
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 21, 2014
I read this book last year and liked it enough to read it again to write a review. George Savile invites his friend Lord Alma to his estate so Alma can meet George's sister, Diana. Unfortunately, Lord Alma rides behind Diana's target while practicing archery and her dog jumps on her and make her miss the target. She accidentally hits Alma in the backside and later has to remove the arrow when the doctor cannot be located. It's a mortifying introduction for both of them.George is compelled to return immediately to London before losing his opportunity to propose to Alonna, and leaves Diana to entertain Lord Alma (with a chaperone) until Alma is well enough to travel. She demonstrates great patience for his churlish behavior and goes above and beyond to suggest activities like fishing, walking in the woods, playing billiards, and inviting neighbors for additional company. She even devises a way for Alma to enjoy some sport with his beloved horses without having to sit down. All of these country activities are a pleasure to read about and I would quite enjoy spending my time in her company! Diana is great!Lord Alma is very grumpy with Diana, though everyone else assures her that he's usually very easy going. When they are invited to a local dinner party to entertain a visiting Countess, Alma is stunned by Diana's beauty when she dresses up and fixes her hair in a fashionable style. Then he's more confused than ever. George returns to the estate and realizes Diana and Alma are attracted to each other and seem to be falling in love, but they are still so embarrassed by their initial introduction they don't seem to realize their growing feelings for each other.  Can they ever get past their mortifying beginning? Will they realize they love each other before another of Diana's suitors sweeps her off her feet?Great book! I agree that is was too bad Alma continued to see his mistress when he returned to London, but that was part of the plot....we get to see Alma finally wake up to his feelings for Diana and when he does, he gives his mistress her conge. I think it actually demonstrates how seriously he takes his eventual courtship of Diana because he makes this intentional decision to be devoted as opposed to just going through the motions of unintentionally falling in love. This is a 4-5 star book. I would have liked a bit more positive interaction between Diana and Alma, but I never doubted their attraction with all of their highly charged (positive and negative) exchanges. They are never indifferent to each other and I enjoyed reading about their HEA.** Mostly clean with a few brief, obvious scenes between Lord Alma and his mistress, but no anatomy lessons or detailed descriptions.