3.5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and St.Martin’s Press for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is on sale now.
Leopold “Leo” Sloane, the Duke of Debden, has dragged his two younger sisters to Bath in an attempt to keep them out of trouble. The youngest is crazy for any man in uniform, and the eldest snuck out of the house and got injured during a protest march. After saying some less-than-complimentary things to his mother about her ability to keep them in hand, she promptly goes on strike (good for her), returns to London and leaves Leo to handle them himself. Obviously, he cannot.
Portia Kendall discovered Mary Wollstonecraft’s writing when she was sixteen, and has burned for reform and a better life for the downtrodden masses ever since. When she is given the job as assistant editor of Equitas, one of the foremost papers that champions reform, she rather impulsively quits her position as a governess in London to travel to Bath, only to discover that none of the people working for the paper actually get paid. They also have to keep their work secret, since the local constabulary and most of the magistrates consider their writing seditious and would like nothing more than to arrest everyone involved in running it.
Portia despises the aristocracy, but she also needs a paying job, so when she sees the Duke of Debden is looking for a chaperone and social secretary for his sisters, she goes to the interview, but is kept waiting for so long that by the time it’s her turn, she has given up any chance of actually getting the job, and is sharp and snarky and very honest during her conversation with the (far too handsome) duke, and is therefore shocked when he actually hires her. As it turns out, his younger sisters are both determined to give her hell, and she certainly earns her salary trying to keep them in line.
Once Portia discovers that Leo is one of the local magistrates, and that the constable most determined to bring Equitas down reports directly to him, she is tempted to resign her position. She can tell that for a nobleman, Leo is a lot more progressive than most of his peers, but he is very much at the top of the social class she is violently opposed to, which makes it all the more difficult that she finds herself increasingly more attracted to him, and her feelings seem to be reciprocated.
Full review here.
