One night of sin by Gaelen Foley

Becky Ward has run away from her home after witnessing a murder. The man responsible is her cousin, the half-English, half-Russian Prince Mikhail, recently come to England to claim the earldom of his English grandfather. He has brought with him his own private army of Cossacks who terrorize the local village. Becky does what she can, but is no match for the ruthless Mikhail, who has promised to bring the outspoken Becky to heel through ravishment. Becky has been four days on the run and on the road from her Yorkshire home to London to find the Duke of Westland, her county's magistrate, knowing that no one of lesser stature could bring Mikhail to justice.

In London, she takes refuge from the rain on a mansion's portico, falling asleep only to be found by Lord Alec Knight and his cohorts. They take her for a prostitute, and though she holds her own and escapes them…..

Alec….Alec has recently been reexamining his life. A gambler whose funds were cut off by his frustrated family, he turned to moneylenders with predictable results. In order to escape, he became a kept man, allowing Lady Campion to pay his debts in exchange for sex. His actions lost him the love of the only woman he could picture himself marrying and since her marriage to another he has been restless, edgy, bored with life and disgusted with himself. Till one night he comes across a whore on the portico of his friend’s mansion…a whore who exudes an air of courage and vulnerability, does not bore him…whom he takes home for a night.
Becky, tired, hungry, Cossacks on her heels, knowing that she will likely be caught and returned to a brutal rape at the hands of Mikhail, decides to spend the night in safety with Alec and lose her virginity to a man of her choosing. They spend a passionate night together where each surprised by the other’s tenderness, kindness and intensity of feelings is a little in love with the other…a ‘little’ love that both are scared of…Becky  that Mikhail will not hesitate to kill Alec, if he finds out that Alec means anything to her…and hence for Alec she leaves the next morning without a word…But Alec follows her and realizes what danger she is in….He fights the Cossacks…and asks her to tell him everything….

Becky entrusts Alec with all her knowledge…and on learning of Becky’s situation and courage she exudes….Alec feels the overwhelming need to protect her…Alec the gambler, Alec the fop, Alec the seducer, Alec the rake….becomes Alec the protector…Keeping Becky safe becomes the purpose of his life…..

But as all Knight brothers do…Alec too has a darkness inside him…the darkness of his tainted past…a past that he at times wants to keep from Becky lest he lose her respect or her love…and a past that at times makes him so guilty that he feels he will lose her if he doesn’t tell her…his compulsive gambling habits and the subsequent losing of his self respect too when he becomes a kept man to Lady Campion….or his trying to win back Lizzie from Strathmore…everything keeps on hounding it…and the only penance he thinks he can do is help Becky get her village back…and bring Mikhail to justice. For which he decides to do what he can do the best….Gamble….

Review  Sadly out of all the Knight brothers I liked Alec least of all. For one thing he never had a purpose in life....perhaps this was his biggest problem throughout the series but he just sounds the male equivalent of a ‘too stupid to live’ TSTL heroine…Becky comes across as a way better character than him and I feel a little sorry she had to settle from someone as indecisive, stupid and so full of himself as Alec….Alec’s transformation from the cynical hedonist to the knight protector in shining armour is hasty and kind of hard to believe…there is so much needless guilt wallowing involved in this story that it made me sick…and I did not sort of agree with the idea of winning back Becky’s village through gambling again…somehow Foley failed to convince me of Alec’s reformation.

On the other hand I so admired Becky…she was confident, practical, honest, realistic about her expectations from Alec, She didn't jump to conclusions, she faced things head on, and didn't let herself , or Alec, take the easy way out. She was just like I like my heroes to be. I liked the part where she confronts Lady Campion…what courage…and what confidence…Becky lifted up my spirits as Alec let me down…she sort of motivated me to finish the book….

So for Becky this book deserves a 5/10…..but skip it if you get bored somewhere in between….