The Duke’s Indiscretion by Adele Ashworth

Colin Ramsey, the Duke of Newark, has been in lusting love with Lottie English, the soprano that has awed London, for a long time. He finally has a plan to make her his mistress, but she propositions him with something else instead. Marriage.

Lottie English is in fact Lady Charlotte Hughes and she has been living a double life for years as the dutiful sister to an earl and sensuous stage diva. Charlotte knows if the world finds out Lottie and Charlotte are one in the same she will shame her family and her brother will treat her worse than he already does, so she proposes to Colin.

Though their marriage is the wedding of the Season, neither Charlotte nor Colin anticipate stage mishaps, devious friends or blackmail.

Though the secondary plot could’ve gotten out of hand with dastardly plots at the opera house, Charlotte and Colin and their romance is definitly the star of the story. One of the biggest hurdles is who is Charlotte exactly? Is she the well-bred lady or the sexy opera singer? Not even she knows sometimes and it’s something she has to overcome.

Colin has to as well, and part of his skills for the crown help him figure this out before Charlotte does. (He works for the crown, but to keep spoilers out of this I’ll refrain from revealing his job). Colin seems to figure alot of things out before Charlotte does. Colin is charming, amusing and of course, considered a good lover. One of the best parts of the book is their wedding night, which is sexy, but I think shows accuratly how male fantasies and a woman’s expectations don’t go well together, especially with a rake and a virgin. There are some other great steamy love scenes as well, and they worked well with the character development.

Charlotte is so focused on her music it makes her a bit clueless. Her heart is in the right place and she wants to please her new husband, but she’s used to a bullying older brother who never appreciated her for who she was and this hurts her new marriage in some ways, but it makes her accept who she is above what others think of her.

The “villians” of the story were rather one note characters, but Ashworth set them up that way and again the true stars of the story were Colin and Charlotte. Though Colin is definitly a great hero and someone very easy to fall for.

Grade: B