An unwilling bride by Jo Beverley

The Duke of Belcraven and his beloved wife have been estranged for years, since the birth of her son as a result of a one-night affair. Due to tragic circumstances, the boy, Lucien, is now the heir to the Belcraven title and fortune. While the duke has accepted Lucien as his son, a painful bitterness lingers between him and his still-beloved wife, creating a wall that neither knows how to breach.

One day a messenger arrives. It seems that the duke’s own brief love affair, embarked upon after his wife’s betrayal, resulted in a daughter. The girl is now grown and teaching at a school for young ladies. And the duke, wishing to preserve his bloodline, devises a plan. Lucien will marry Elizabeth, or be disinherited.

The news that he is not only illegitimate but is about to be forced into marriage comes as no small shock to Lucien. His reputation as a reprobate notwithstanding, he had been considering marriage to a society miss. After all, he has Blanche, his actress mistress and friend. Ah well, one woman will do as well as another for a wife. Lucien and the duke embark, separately, to meet Elizabeth.

Miss Beth Armitage is in for a similar shock. The news that the nobleman sitting in the parlor is not only her father but has every intention of forcing her to marry his wife’s son is almost too much to bear. Beth reluctantly agrees to meet Lucien, with a plan to scare him off. Alas, that backfires, and they come to an understanding. They will marry, and do their best to be civil to each other.

And thus starts a courtship and marriage, where Beth tries her best to hate Lucien, and Lucien has all his efforts to be kind and considerate thrown back in his face by his unwilling bride. It is best not to reveal the further plot of this book, as it does not really have much of a plot. Instead I would like to talk about what I liked about the book and what I did not.

It was nice to see a heroine who stood up for equality of women and valued education and independence but at the same time it was heart breaking to see her scared and showing maidenly modesty and being skittish and scared at time. It was nice to see her stand up to her husband but she took the notion of 'standing up' a bit too far. It was nice to see a hero who was a perfect intellectual match for her, but even their verbal sparrings got repetitive and bland after a while. It was nice to see a hero who was initially so kind and considerate despite the circumstances he was forced into, but who later gets violent with the heroine. The worst part was where he strikes her because he suspects her of being with another man! It is easy to understand anguish and temper, frustration and desperation but violence? That too specially against a person you love! How can one ever justify that. That one incident overturned the tone of the story for me. But again it was nice to see that the hero and heroine established a mental companionship before a physical relationship.

The secondary characters were well sketched but a bit too much for the story line. They somehow weighed it down instead of  embelleshing it.

As for a rating I am as confused as the hero and heroine of this book...but may be a 6.5/10