Review: Unforgivable
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 9, 2013
In 1809 Rose Davenport almost dies of chicken pox and fever, but when she recovers is told she is marrying, for a gentleman desires her dowry.  Aged seventeen and unpresented, she has no say in her life and accepts that her father is making a safe match for her.  But the young man who offers for her hand, trying to ignore her blemishes, resents having to marry wealth to save his family's estates.A miserable wedding and honeymoon follows for Rose, whose shorn hair and emaciated figure give her no confidence and don't flatter her. Only at piano playing does she excel. Gilbert, a Viscount, had hoped to marry his sweetheart and is dreadfully disappointed by having to do his duty. The breakdown of communication leads to Gil's riding back to London to the society life and leaving Rose ensconced at his Northumberland house, alone for the next five years.Bored and regretful, Rose has become a good steward of the estate, and takes matters into her own hands. She travels to London and stays with a lady friend, and deliberately meets Gil at a masked ball. He has had one mistress after another, and she entices him to betray his wife one more time. He has no idea who she is, but after a night of passion with a voluptuous beauty he wants to see more of her.  She has vanished however.  The vicious social gossip mill is in full swing by now and Rose wonders if she should set Gil free....A nicely toney romance, UNFORGIVABLE shines a spotlight on the role of women, as the carriers of wealth without permission to be women of substance in their own right.  Little is said about the lower classes even when Rose is improving their circumstances; what surprised me more was that nothing was said of the Napoleonic wars, when Gil and his younger brother would have joined some regiment and needed heirs in case they were killed in battle.  Life was far from being all balls and card parties at this time.