Review: The Scandalous Love of a Duke by Jane Lark
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 16, 2014
This is the third book in Jane Lark's Marlow Intrigues series.I very much enjoyed the first book, Illicit Love, and I am happy to see that this book is even better written and more assured than her debut. I prefer more humor in my romances and this romance is very serious.John is Ellen’s son, the heroine of Illicit Love but John has always felt separate and apart from his half siblings due to his privileged birth as well as his older age. For the first ten years of his life, he was also kept apart from his mother by her father, the old and imperious Duke of Pembroke so he hasn’t been with his family very long.Katherine is friends with John’s sisters and pines hopelessly for John, almost like a schoolgirl but, to her credit, she goes on with her life knowing she cannot have him. Philip, kind brother, has been friends with John for years, since school days and Philip is also her good friend—she’s adopted—as she is ignored by her mother and sister. She is treated little more than a servant—like Fanny Price in Mansfield Park. She is gentry and therefore beneath John socially.John wears the weighty heavy mantle of Duke of Pembroke and isn’t quite sure how to make it fit. He feels isolated and lonely and that he can no longer trust people as they try to align themselves to his wealth and power, yet he is determined to be a good heir. He is also busy investigating a fraud prompted by an inquiry from Philip, and discovers his grandfather’s coffers have been pilfered for years.John is a bit arrogant and selfish and is instantly attracted to Katherine when she and Philip crash his grandfather’s elegant and exclusive funeral. He madly pursues her, sending her gifts at the same time he knows they should not and cannot be together. He promised his grandfather he would marry a worthy bride of his own class. Katherine is insulted at his arrogance at the same time she craves and enjoys his attentions.They begin an everything-but-intercourse illicit affair, meeting secretly in the Tower rooms of Pembroke Place. But is John simply seeking pleasure or does he love Katherine as she loves him? They love each other but cannot be together. I must admit I didn’t much joy in their relationship and, in his very misguided desperation to keep her in his life, John even proposes an unorthodox arrangement for them.I did like how John’s family is very loving and supportive, although it lessens some of the possible tension in the book. Just when I think something is going to be cause for great concern, it is quickly resolved.While more tightly written than both her debut and her sophomore novel, The Passionate Love of a Rake, I found it a bit overlong and drawn out; I really thought it could have ended with their marriage. Instead, there is the resolution of the secondary mystery story with his former steward, which I didn’t really care about, although the twist at the end was unexpected.An angsty love story that I think would have been better presented as a novella.