Review: An enjoyable read
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 12, 2013
The heroine Caroline Jellico becomes the ward of the hero, the Duke of Chanceworth (Roe) at 15 when her brother dies from cholera when the 2 men are in Persia looking for a precious artifact. Roe is guilt stricken over his best friend's death. He was saved by his father who brought him back home; but who refused to do the same for Christopher, Caroline's brother who was merely a baron's son.The ward & guardian trope is nicely done; Caroline falls in love with Roe quite early on & tells him of her love & suggests they marry instead of her having a Season. When he turns her down, she continues to London with Roe's mother & is introduced to Society but declares herself done after 2 wks & returns to the country. Even then, Roe is already attracted to Caroline but refuses to acknowledge his feelings since she's his ward.I like both Caroline's & Roe's characters & they had wonderful chemistry. Caroline is intelligent. Roe teaches her cards when she became his ward & she becomes a master at it by counting the cards & calculating the probabilities of what card will turn up (I can't imagine being able to do that mentally!). She's determined to be independent & stay unmarried since Roe will not have her.The story reopens 7 years later with Caroline back in London with Roe's mother & his aunt. She's come up with a plan to disguise herself as a boy to be able to enter the gambling dens & win enough money to not have to depend on Roe. Her plan is to convert her family's townhome into a into a boarding house for other orphan girls who were too old to live in asylums. She's way successful & soon is quite well known as "Grey" the young boy who always wins. Her disguise doesn't last very long with Roe who realizes quite soon when he plays her that Grey is female & later discovers it's Caroline.I love when he gets protective of Caroline (he gets all worried that someone will see thru her disguise & what would happen then) & jealous when other men notice her beauty (when she's not in disguise of course). He has a chip on his shoulder that he's not capable of loving Caroline as she deserves to be loved being his father's son (who never loved or was faithful to his mother) & his 1st failed engagement.I enjoyed the book & would recommend it to those who enjoy a light historical romance read with engaging characters. There were a few typos in the ARC copy that I read but not that numerous that it became irritating.