MacLean's Rules of Scoundrels Series (A Rogue by Any Other Name: Book 1)

Rules of Scoundrels (Book One: A Rogue by Any Other Name)

Sarah MacLean

Stars:  Definitely ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ (gaming hell; feisty heroine; hot hero; kidnapping; awesome characters—Pippa is a jewel)

Heat rating:   🔥🔥🔥½  (see the SEX-AND-SPOILERS section.)

So, I must admit something. Sarah MacLean may be one of my top 5 favorite historical romance authors. I found her in March of this year, and immediately purchased all of her books. I love all her series. Important note: the Rules of Scoundrels series is closely tied to an earlier series, Love by Numbers. I did not read the series in order, though I kind of wish I had. You’ll hear familiar names and places throughout her books. So I suggest you read them in order, but this series is my favorite, though I adore them ALL (also, do not miss her Bareknuckle Bastards series)! I also love all gaming hell/sex club stories, even more than my beloved spy tales!

COVER RATING: this one gets an B, merely because I would have liked to see Bourne in it (seriously, his description makes me think of a hazel-eyed Henry Cavill). Plus, this model is, frankly, just too pretty for Penelope. Penelope not being supermodel hot is one of the reasons I love her. She was described as plain (“like tepid dishwater”), and we plain girls are here for that! Points for the color of the dress, though, since there’s a part about Penelope wearing a similar colored gown.

Anyway, we start with a prologue. It’s 1821, and a 21-year-old Michael Lawler, Marquess of Bourne, has just lost his entire fortune during a game of Twenty-One (seriously, that’s a lot of 21s. That’s GOT to be the Powerball). The worst part is that he’s lost it to someone who was supposed to be a friend—his father’s friend who has acted as his guardian since Bourne’s parents were killed in a carriage accident, Viscount Langford—who is also the father of his best friend Tommy Alles. Langford is a dick about it, too: “You should thank me for teaching you such a valuable lesson at such a young age. Unfortunately, now you’ve nothing but the clothes on your back and a manor house empty of its contents” (page 2). It’s all gone, the membership to the club, land, servants, horses, you name it. Langford adds insult to injury by flipping him a coin, and Bourne is left with nothing. Except a burning revenge. 🔥

Random note, here’s what I imagine 21-year old Bourne looks like. Just change those eyes to hazel. (You’re welcome.) 😰

Chapter one brings us to 10 years later, and Bourne is overseeing his empire, London’s most exclusive gaming hell, The Fallen Angel, which he owns with three mysterious partners (we briefly meet Temple and Chase in this chapter). He’s watching a young earl beggar himself, losing his money and his estate in Wales, and though this is exactly what happened to him 10 years previously, Bourne DGAF. The young earl begs, pleads, threatens, and Temple, who is huge and likes a fight, plans to pop him and throw him out, but, for some reason, Bourne decides he wants to handle it. The earl embarrasses himself, begging not to lose his club membership, already offering up the dowry of his betrothed to cover his many debts. You’d think Bourne would have some compassion, but we learn that Bourne has none.

Chase, the third partner, has got some news—Bourne’s land, Falconwell (where his manor house, the ONLY thing he has left besides a title that he doesn’t use, is) may be within his grasp. He’s tried to buy it from Langford, offering ridiculous amounts of money through powerful men, but Langford has consistently refused. But now, Langford has lost the land through a game of cards (cue Alanis Morrisette’s Ironic), and it belongs to another neighbor, the Marquess of Needham and Dolby. Bourne says he will do whatever is required to get it, and Chase’s response (“whatever?”) clues him in that it’s not going to be as easy as he thinks—see, the Marquess has an unmarried 28-year-old daughter, and Falconwell is now part of her dowry. Bourne knows immediately who that is: Penelope, his childhood playmate, who he hasn’t seen in 16 years. Bourne is confused—Penelope’s father is rich as Midas, why isn’t she married? Well, apparently, Penelope was engaged to the Duke of Leighton, but her fiancé fell in love with another woman and the wedding was called off. (Kinda spoiler-y: you’ll find everything about this in the third book in the previous series, Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart. If you’ve read these in order, you’ll recognize Penelope from there, already.) This was a major scandal (they didn’t have the internet or TMZ, so this counts as major scandal, I guess), and she’s been unwed and basically unwanted since (in fact, you’ll learn later, it’s affected her sisters as well). Bourne doesn’t care—he’s getting that land even if he gets a wife as well. ❗❗

Chapter two begins with letters between P (Penelope) and M (Michael, aka Bourne). Each chapter starts with these letters, plus you’ll find some within the chapters. In this one, P writes and M replies, and you can sense the friendship in the correspondence. The meat of the chapter finds Penelope and Tommy (yes, the Tommy from the prologue), who she has been friends with since childhood. Except, today, Tommy is asking her to marry him and she has no damned clue why he decided to do that now. She knows her father wants all of his daughters married (the twins are married, though the matches were not ideal). She thinks Tommy is just taking pity on her, but he says something interesting and mysterious: “Please, Pen. Let me protect you” (19). Hm, Penelope doesn’t say no, but she doesn’t say yes, to her mother’s eternal distress (she was not born to be a spinster’s mother!, she laments. Whoo, that lady is drama). Penelope and her younger sister Philippa (Pippa, the nerdy, logical one who wears glasses—I love her already) don’t seem fazed by her mothers histrionics, and laugh it off. Little sister Olivia, who is gorgeous and probably looks like the model on the cover, is bracingly direct, though—she believes that Penelope didn’t do enough to keep the Duke from marrying another (whatever, child, you’re only like 17. Hush, adults are talking).🤦

Oh, but nah, her father says she will get married, even though Penelope tells him he can’t force her. Ah, but he has an ace up his sleeve—he drops the info about Falconwell and says that, soon, the offers will roll in. All she can think is that (1) Tommy was trying to get Falconwell, which abuts his own father’s land, and (2) Falconwell was her friend Michael’s birthright, which was stolen from him. Poor Penelope (she HATES when anyone says that, btw):

“She wasn’t beautiful. She wasn’t clever. She wasn’t very much of anything except the eldest daughter of a very rich, very titled aristocrat. Born and bred to be the wife of an equally rich, equally titled aristocrat.” (37)

Anyway, late that night, Penelope goes walking the grounds of the land that is now attached to her. She knows that she’s going to have to marry Tommy, though it’s not what she wants. But soon, everything has changed, since she runs into a specter—well, not really. She runs into Michael/Bourne, who is there in the house that he still owns on the land that is now sort of hers, trying to formulate a plan to marry her. He’s got a special license in his pocket, for God’s sake, and how difficult was THAT to procure in just a few hours??? Their interaction here is hilarious—she initially doesn’t recognize him and tries to bluff, saying the Marquess of Bourne would be angry that the stranger is on his property—till he calls her by name and Penelope, who is clearly pretty damned unafraid (I’ve been a 28-year-old spinster myself, so I can attest that you start to develop a major DGAF attitude), pushes his hat back and sees the hazel eyes she knows so well. (Sorry, squirrel MUST BE FREE: I LOVE when Team Hazel Eyes is represented in books. I have hazel eyes and I don’t think they get enough appreciation.)

Penelope is delighted. She has no idea that her Michael has become a totally different person, and not just that the kid she last saw at 15 or 16 has become a tall, hot man, one who can excite her with just a look. Not just that he refuses to let her call him Michael (Bourne, just Bourne). He’s beautiful, but something is radically different:

“Indeed, as much as Penelope searched this new, hard face, she could not seem to find the boy she’d once known. If not for the eyes, she would not have believed it was him at all.

‘How sad,’ she whispered to herself.

He heard it. ‘What?’

She shook her head, meeting his gaze, the only thing familiar about him.

‘He’s gone.’

‘Who?’

‘My friend.’ ” (51)

She. Has. No. Idea. 😩

Actually, she soon learns, because she cannot keep from mentioning that he is, in fact, on her land. Oh, she thought she saw cold. “ ‘You and your father think to catch you a husband with my land?’ He knew” (52). And she now knows that he didn’t come to see her; he came for the land. She’s hurt and wants to hurt him, so she invents a fiancé (well, I mean, she was planning to hold her nose and agree to Tommy, so it’s not that much of a lie). But damn, Bourne keeps shooting arrows into her heart: “Every man in London wants Falconwell, if not for the land, then to hold it over my head.” Jesus Christmas, fella, ouch. Oh, and if we thought that was bad, it gets worse: “They’ll even marry an aging spinster to get it.” Lord, I want to kick him in the balls, hazel-eyed Henry Cavill or not. There’s cruel and then there’s brutal. The worst part is that she’s still attracted to him. Even though he hits her with the cruelest arrow yet, that they’re going to get married and she cannot stop this meteor streaking toward the planet, as he throws her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and heads toward his manor house. One night alone with him, and she’ll be ruined and forced to marry him. Damn, that’s ice cold (. . . alright alright alright alright alright alright alright alright alright alright alright alright alright alright alright alright! Sorry for that random Outkast outburst. Maybe I’ll use “OUTKAST” instead of “SQUIRREL!” Hm, that idea has some merit).

That being said, as much as I want to hate him right now, after he spanks her ass when she starts to wriggle, and she says that gentlemen shouldn’t do that, he lays some sexy truths on her:

“First, I thought we’d already established that I am not a gentleman. That ship sailed long ago. And second, you’d be surprised what gentlemen do . . . and what ladies enjoy.” (58)

He’s still acting cold, but he’s actually a little shook himself, because he has found himself mighty attracted to “quiet, unassuming Penelope Marbury” and is imagining kissing her. Heyyyyyyyy. But man, he’s covering that up well by being an utter asshole: “My plan is to restore Falconwell’s lands to its manor and, unfortunately for you, it requires our marriage. I shan’t be a good husband, but I also haven’t the slightest interest in keeping you under my thumb” (67). Well, damn. That dried everything right up, didn’t it? And then he lays down the insult that is so magnificent of an insult that I may well borrow it for the title of my autobiography. He calls her “a spinster who dreams of more” (68). Whoa, now you’re getting personal, my dude. 👀

The thing is, as much as she hates him for what he’s telling her, at least he’s being honest. Tommy, and the scads of other suitors who would have pursued her, would not tell her the truth. So why not marry this hot man with the body of a god? So she wants to negotiate, because no clergyman can marry them if she refuses. Bourne basically says: whatevs, I can just lie and said I rocked your virginal world here and you’ll be ruined—and rips the bodice of her gown for good measure. Ah, Penelope-who-is-far-more-clever-than-anyone-gives-her-credit-including-herself replies, then he’ll also ruin his chance of getting his land back. Now, that makes him sit up and listen. Her price? He needs to help her make successful matches for Pippa and Olivia. And he agrees.

He takes her upstairs to what used to be his mom’s sitting room (the freaking house is falling to pieces), where they can hunker down for the night, and he teases her about her childhood fear of the dark. She swears she has no such thing, and he calls her a terrible bluff. Penelope finally falls asleep, to wake up later with Bourne pressed up against her in sleep, with his arm over her. She is torn about how she should feel about this, but, um, this man is hot as FIRE, and, is that a special license in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? I say: roll with it.

Yeah, Penelope isn’t stupid. She wants to get her fingers in that sexy hair, and wakes him up in the process. Because, to be honest, her kidnapping is boring. I mean, lying asleep, fully dressed, is not what a kidnapping and ravishing sounded like to her. And since she’s Penelope, she tells him exactly that. Okay, says, Bourne, “Play your card, Penelope” and she wants a kiss. Yeah, if she thinks that’s all she’s getting, she’s crazy. She’s getting her first kiss and—bonus—her first orgasm as well! Merry Christmas, Penelope! 🎄

Penelope has to understand that he can READ her. It’s necessary in his job to watch for the slightest tell. So he knows when she starts thinking during the kiss. Penelope does a LOT of thinking, lol. So, she tries to stop and just let herself sink into this hot AF kiss, and . . . she’s thinking again (granted, she’s thinking that kissing is da bomb, but she’s still thinking). Finally, she lets herself go and kisses him back, and he responds. And soon, she’s coming out of her ruined gown and he’s got his mouth all over her:

“ ‘I’m going to corrupt you,’ he promised her skin, one hand sliding down the swell of her stomach, feeling the way the muscles there tensed and quivered at his touch. ‘I’m going to turn you from light to dark, from good to bad. I’m going to ruin you.’ She didn’t care. She was his. He owned her in this moment, with this touch. ‘And do you know how it will feel?’ ” (87)

Hell, I’m pretty sure I can guess how it will feel. She says “splendid” but she knows it’s going to change everything. And clearly he’s excited, because he’s got his fingers inside her, saying things like “You make my mouth water” (whooo, boy), and even though I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him, he’s clearly into it. And he says something that really gets me thinking; when he feels how excited she is, “it means that, even after all these years, after everything I’ve done, after everything I am, I can make you want me” (88), and that’s very telling. I actually felt a little sorry for him, because he knows he’s bad . . .

Anyway, Penelope is a lucky lady, because Bourne likes to go down, and wants to rock her world. Which he does. And then, after giving Penelope pleasure like she’s never experienced, he goes full asshole, AGAIN, and leaves her alone, with freezing cold words: “You’re well and truly ruined now . . . Our marriage is no longer a question” (90). Damn. 😞

So they both spend a cold and lonely rest of their night. He tries to justify that straight up cruelty, by noting that he is making a spinster a marchioness, but he cannot forget how she looked the night before:

“A vision flashed, large blue eyes set wide in her plain face, pleasure and something more blazing there. Something too close to emotion. Too close to caring. That was why he’d left her, strategically. Coolly. Calculatingly. To proved the marriage would be a business arrangement  . . . Not because removing his mouth and hands from her had been one of the most difficult things he had ever done. Not because he’d been tempted to do just the opposite—to sink into her and revel in her, soft where women were meant to be soft and sweet where they were meant to be sweet. Not because those little sighs that came from the back of her throat while he kissed her were the most erotic things he’d ever heard, or that she tasted like innocence.” (94)

Hm, you’re not as cold as you’d like us to believe, are you, Bourne? And apparently that frightens him, because he keeps telling himself he wants nothing more to do with her after they return to London. He doesn’t care about her . . . or does he? Because the next thing he knows, he hears her scream and a gunshot, and he is breaking down the door to get to her. But it’s not a pirate, it’s her father, the Marquess of Needham and Dolby, who is hella dangerous with a rifle because he’s an awful shot. And he’s pissed. Pissed enough that when Bourne notes that he could shoot his own child, her father replies, “I could also kill you. I like my odds!” Lol, her dad is funny.

“A bullet lodged itself in the exterior wall, several inches from Michael’s head. ‘You’re not getting Falconwell, Bourne. Nor are you getting my daughter!’

‘Well, I’ll be honest, Needham . . . I’ve already had your daughter—’

The words were cut off by Needham’s bellow. ‘Blighter!’

Penelope gasped. ‘You did not just tell my father you’ve had me.’ ” (98)

I mean, he’s not lying . . .

So Penelope knows what kind of man Bourne is, but it’s really hitting home now. He really sounds like a horrible person. And all he cares about in the world is Falconwell. And she knows that she means nothing to him. But . . . he does not like the resignation in her voice, and “for the first time in a very long time—in nine years—Bourne felt the urge to apologize to someone he’d used.” He doesn’t, of course, but he does ask him to marry her, though she’s not fooled—it’s already a given. He promises to do right by her sisters and she agrees, and—because everything is always calculated with Bourne—he makes sure to kiss her where her father can see, to seal the deal.

The next chapter starts with another correspondence exchange between young Penelope and Michael, then we are with Bourne in the Hound and Hen, waiting for Needham to come with the papers giving him Falconwell. Penelope’s dad knows Bourne has him by the short hairs (“Father,” Bourne calls him) yet, he too, wants to ensure the future of Pippa and Olivia. Needham has no idea that Penelope has already gambled and won regarding the sisters, so he offers something else—something even better than Falconwell, if that’s possible. It’s a piece of paper that holds something about Bourne’s dreaded enemy Langford, something that will ruin him. Bourne has been looking for 9 years for something on the man, but he’s been clean as a whistle. Yeah, well, this is far older. We don’t hear what it is specifically, but we have an idea from Needham’s words: “I like the boy . . . I kept this close at hand because I thought that Penelope would marry him eventually, and he’d require protection” (107). Bourne is shook by what he’s read, and agrees to get the sisters successfully married (though he’d already agreed the same to Penelope).

The next bit of correspondence, Penelope’s condolences on the sudden loss of his parents, is one-sided, as Michael does not reply. In fact, he never replies to her again.

And boom, like that, she is the Marchioness of Bourne, and she and her new husband are traveling to London. And even though she knows why he married her, she cannot really complain because this is the type of marriage she had always expected: “ . . . a marriage of convenience. A marriage of duty. A marriage of propriety” (110). Penelope is being Penelope, all in her head, and Bourne is ignoring her. He’s going to soon learn that Penelope doesn’t get ignored, because now she’s asking him about formulating their plan. Huh?, he’s thinking. Haha, have you met her? She’s already working on getting those sisters married. He’s not worried, he is sure he can scare up two guys who owe him enough money that they’ll marry anyone. Oh hells no, she actually pokes him and puts the kibosh on that. No marriage to miserable cheating husbands for her youngest sisters! So she pulls a plan out of the air; the way to get a respectable marriage for her sisters is to pretend their own marriage was a love match. Blink blink. Fine, he says, tell the tale. So she starts creating a fantasy of how he returned to the village for the Christmas season and ran into her at a feast. He adds something uber interesting to the tale though, “and there you were, my childhood sweetheart.” Now it’s her turn to go, whuh? They weren’t ever childhood sweethearts, she reminds him. Oh, he explains, truth doesn’t matter—all that matters is if it’s believed. Oh, she asks, the first rule of scoundrels? No, he explains, the first rule of gambling, and then he says this:

“ ‘Come now, you think anyone will care to confirm the part of our tale that began during our childhood?’

‘I suppose not,’ she grumbled.

‘They won’t. And besides, it’s the closest thing to the truth in the entire thing.’

It was?” (115)

She continues to set the scene, even down to what they were wearing, and then he asks her why on earth he would be there. And she said to put flowers on his parents’ graves, which he does every year at Christmas, roses and dahlias. Now, his Spidey sense is tingling—that’s hella specific. And he asks if someone were to visit his parents’ graves, what would they find? And she can’t lie—she’s been putting flowers there for years. And he’s shook, but, in typical Bourne fashion, responds as coldly as humanly possible. Sigh.

Anyway, he suggests a bachelor for Olivia (hm, that’s as far as he goes toward being apologetic and caring), Viscount Tottenham, who is, in his words, “as close to a friend as I have.” And he doesn’t owe Bourne money so it’s not like he’s going to be forced into agreement. Tottenham is actually a catch. She asks if he has an invitation to Tottenham’s, and he replies;

“ ‘I own the most lucrative gaming hell in London. There are few men in Britain who cannot find time to speak to me.’

‘And what of their wives?’

‘What of them?’

‘You think they won’t judge you?’

‘I think they all want me in their beds, so they will find room for me in their drawing rooms.’ ” (119)

Huh. Wow. He’s so damned conceited and I’m here for it. 🔥

Anyway, now they’re both pissed and bickering. And he surprises her by asking her what else she wants. Remember, he’s trained to read people. She’s actually confused, and he provides her with the next rule of scoundrels:

“ ‘If your opponent makes it impossible for you to lose, Penelope, you should wager.’

‘Another rule of gambling?’

‘Another rule of scoundrels. One that also holds true with husbands. Doubly so with husbands like me.’ ” (122)

And he’s right. She wants more than a plain, proper life. She wants excitement. And my girl has moxie.  When he says, “name your adventure, Lady Penelope,” she corrects him. Her name is Lady Bourne now and she wants to visit the Angel. Hell to the no, he says. So she’s pissed. He promised her adventures, but he reminds her that that was before she decided they needed to be respectable for her sisters, leading to the third rule of gambling/scoundrels: Do not bet what you are not willing to lose.

She stands down, but this leads to one of the most delightful passages in the book that made me legit laugh out loud:

“ ‘At least tell me about it.’

‘About what?’

‘About your hell.’

He crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I imagine it would be very similar to a long carriage ride with a bride with a newfound taste for adventure.’

She laughed, surprised by the jest. ‘Not that kind of hell. Your gaming hell.’ ” (125)

Oh, SM, there’s nothing better than a good book that makes you giggle.

So, he agrees to take her to the Fallen Angel. He tells her about his partners, and she starts to recognize that coming back from losing hundreds of thousands of pounds is pretty freaking impressive. And he reads her again and stops her romanticizing. In a dick way, of course: “You think I haven’t seen the same look in the eyes of a dozen other women? A hundred of them? Don’t do it . . . you shall only be disappointed.” Uh, yeah, talk about the hundred other women you’ve had in your life to your new wife. That’s swell.

This is one long ride, because they move into her previous engagement, which he—being as pragmatic as he is—equates with escape and freedom, which she’d never thought about. She could have been married to a Duke who she didn’t even like, but now she can be happy. If that’s possible with him. But even with freedom came a lot of misery—the broken engagement made the ton see she wasn’t the perfect woman/bride, which is why she was a 28-year-old spinster. However, the Duke’s marriage to his love showed her that love was an actual thing, but it doesn’t matter anymore, because she’s married now. Damn, that’s a tough realization for both of them.

And he sees she’s cold, and grabs her and holds her to him. Which is the best possible outcome for this type of convo, isn’t it? She talks about the kind of men that would suit her sisters, and mentions that Pippa is close to betrothed to Lord Castleton, which stops him. Hm, he knows something about Castleton? And Olivia sounds like a brat, lol. And he asks Penelope about herself, what kind of man would suit her, and she says it doesn’t matter. He brings up the mysterious fiancé, but she doesn’t admit it’s just Tommy. And says she wished the man who suited her would be like her husband, which makes him take a long look at her.

And in light speed time, he’s dropped her off at this London townhouse and rolled out to the Angel, leaving her alone on their wedding night. See, Bourne is catching feelings and he has NO idea how to deal with that. So he is conflicted by the fact that he actually seems to like her, that he wants to kill the Duke who jilted her, that he’s moved that she puts flowers on his parents’ graves. No, he’s got to keep his distance. The land, and now ruining Langford, is all he should focus on. Which is why he’s at his club. Cross, the fourth partner, the money man, is a bit confused as to why the hell he’s there. Apparently Cross is wondering why Bourne isn’t home bedding his new wife? Cross asks if she’s horsefaced, lol, and Bourne remembers what her face looks in passion from when he was snacking on her at the manor, and gets excited. Which he hides from Cross, of course. He would love to go home and make love to his wife, but he knows her; she will want more (of course idiot, Y’ALL JUST GOT MARRIED). He explains the wrinkle of Langdon’s ruination and how he has to match the sisters—he mentions Castleton, who Cross says is an idiot. I like Cross. He asks:

“ ‘Would you let your unmarried sister marry him?’

‘I don’t have an unmarried sister.’

‘It sounds to me like you have two of them now.’ ” (143)

Bingo!

Jeez, Castleton really does sound like a fool. And Cross’ words bring a niggling bit of guilt about allowing that to continue. Oh, and Cross also reminds him that he’s going to need to consummate the marriage—otherwise, it could be annulled. Before, they can go any further, they hear the bouncers trying to handle a disturbance. It’s Tommy, who is all kinds of pissed off. Bourne thinks it’s because of the paper that Needham showed him, but oh, no. He’s looking for Penelope (and the land, Bourne thinks). And Tommy won’t even lie about it; he tried to marry her first, he says. Boom, Bourne knows who the fiancé is, now . . . And he’s mad—because he thinks that Penelope believes she loves Tommy (not even close). The thing is, he should be delighted that he’s taken everything from Tommy, but he’s just mad that Tommy got that close to having Penelope and the land. And now he really wants to destroy Tommy; you see, that paper that Penelope’s father gave him? Langford is not Tommy’s father, so Tommy should not be heir. Oh, but Tommy has a way to hurt Bourne back: “She was mine before she was yours . . . All those years without you . . . she still had me. And when she sees who you are . . . what you’ve become . . . she will turn to me again” (149).

But anyway, while this is happening, Penelope is standing in the foyer of her new home, where her new husband deposited her and rolled out. She finally sends a young footman to find the housekeeper, and looks around her new grand home. Finally, she meets the housekeeper, Mrs. Worth, who is apparently the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen. This woman sounds like a blue-eyed version of Dolly Parton’s Jolene. Or maybe young Moira from the first season of American Horror Story. Oh, and she calls him Bourne and they seem VERY friendly. Yeah, and there’s no Mr. Worth. Penelope is legit concerned. A young housemaid named Alice enters her chamber, letting slip that the townhouse is called “Hell House” (lmao, I legit spit out my margarita when I read that), and that many of the staff were basically rescued from bad situations by Bourne. Penelope asks where Bourne’s room is, and it’s adjacent, and conveniently, there’s a connecting door. But, Alice warns her that he rarely sleeps at home—ooh Lawd, girl, you have no idea what that did to Penelope. She’s imaging another mistress (another, since she already thinks Mrs. Worth is one), a raven-haired temptress (I guess blonds always think the other woman is dark-haired, and brunettes always think the other woman is a blond). And the clock strikes midnight and . . . her wedding night is over. She is still a virgin, her husband is nowhere to be found, and she will, by God, snoop in his room and find the bloody heads of all the previous wives. Well, that is not what she’s thinking, but y’all remember Bluebeard. Curiosity can kill a cat in record time.🙀

Yeah, well, not Penelope. She’s going to find her own damned adventure, so she goes into his room (the door isn’t locked . . . so, it’s not B&E). The first thing she sees is a massive painting of the grounds of Falconwell. And a massive bed with a fur coverlet. Jesus, is he Bourne or Hef? But the next passage is pure Sarah MacLean and made me snort laugh. Penelope decides to fill a tumbler half full of scotch, and toss it back. (Note: I think scotch is vile. The only time I actually enjoyed it was when I did a tester flight at Ashford Castle on my Ireland trip in 2013. Also, the server who suggested I try them was hot and had a beautiful accent, so that probably contributed to my enjoyment.) Anyway, Penelope tries scotch:

“She took a perverse pleasure in the way the amber liquid filled the crystal, and she snickered as she wondered what her new husband would think if he arrived home to that moment—his proper wife, plucked from the path to spinsterhood, clutching a glass half-full of scotch.

Half-full of the future.

Half-full of adventure.

With a grin, Penelope toasted herself in the wide mirror mounted behind the decanter and took a long drink of the whiskey.

And nearly died.” (161)

I will forever be grateful for her description of the taste being like fire and trees. Exactly! And when she says she’s concerned she may have done irreversible damage to her innards, I cracked the hell up. That’s me and Fireball shots. (Also note: if I ever say “shots are a great idea!” that means it’s time for me to go home.) And . . . the alcohol starts talking to her and she’s feeling all kinds of alright, which is also dangerous, lol. She’s discovered that Bourne has a LOT of books, and she starts going through them and discovers a well-worn volume of Debrett’s Peerage. (I actually have that link bookmarked, because no matter how many of these books I read, I always forget that a Marquess is higher than an Earl.) Looks like Bourne checks his own name out a lot.

Anyway, she ends up on the fur coverlet, and Bourne walks in to find her writhing on it. And whooo, buddy, he’s found out what temptation looks like in the flesh. He came home to bless her out about Tommy, actually. He also came to consummate the marriage ASAP, because he’s frankly slightly concerned about Tommy. She’s a little tipsy, and liquid courage has her spouting off about his raven-haired temptress (he’s so freaking confused). She’s making no damned sense, but when she asks him if he’s laughing at her, he sure knows to say no. He’s worried she’s drunk, but nope, she “drank just enough to find the courage to ask for what [she] want[s]” (170). And basically she seduces him.

Y’all know the deal, constant reader. Nookie goes in the section below. So head down there if you want to hear about it, otherwise, let’s continue. Short version, his mind is blown and he’s straight up catching feelings so he goes back to GUY 101, and makes himself scarce. Grrrrr. The housekeeper has to deliver a message to her regarding dinner at Tottenham’s house (so they can act the happy couple and hook Olivia up). And that is an interesting dinner, because Bourne is giving an Academy Award performance, so much that even Penelope is having trouble realizing it’s all a farce. But they’ve got to win over the ton. (Btw, we meet Donovan West, a newspaper publisher, who features in all four books, and gets his own story in the last one.) Bourne pulls her into a hallway alcove, which IS NOT DONE (Lord, Penelope, your husband owns a gaming hell—he’s not gonna follow rules; LET. IT. GO). And he seduces her in the hallway, and is caught by Tottenham. Now this whole sequence is something. He started out playing a part, but he really is tempted beyond belief. But when Tottenham catches them, and Bourne segues to Olivia, Penelope feels like she’s been used—even though it’s for the goal of helping her sister. She’s sad, and he gives her another rule of scoundrels—never regret (gamblers ALWAYS have regrets eventually, so this one is scoundrels only). But the fact that he’s thrown himself into this role has HER Spidey sense tingling, and she starts thinking (I told you she was far from stupid)—her father has given him something else and she wants to know what. He refuses to tell her about Tommy’s parentage, so she’s freaking done—tells him not to touch her again in private. They’ll play the game in public, but she doesn’t want games in their personal life.

So he doesn’t. He leaves her alone and she doesn’t even know if he’s come or gone. She hears a carriage and listens to the adjoining door, but can’t hear him. Oh, and Mrs. Worth catches her so she looks like an idiot. But Mrs. Worth is at the door for a reason—Tommy is there to visit. After 11 p.m. Uh, this ain’t gonna be good. However, she’s happy to see her old friend—she’s been cooped up in that townhouse with no friends or family, so she dashes down to see him and immediately realizes it’s a bad idea when the first thing out of ihs mouth is “I’m here to steal you away, of course.” Ohhhhhhh, yeah, Bourne is gonna lose his SHIT. She actually feels like she’s betraying her husband. Tommy says he just wants to know if she’s alright and . . . cue the waterworks. Which makes Tommy think that Bourne is abusing her. Now he REALLY wants to spirit her away. She realizes that his marriage proposal was not to just protect her from fortune hunters who heard about her dowry; it was specifically to protect her from Bourne. She asks why he didn’t just confide in her then, and all he can say is “Penny, if you’d known he was coming for you, you would have waited . . . It was always him” (202). Damn, that made me sad, because she never really realized it, did she?

Still, Tommy wants her to go away with him. Bourne isn’t a nice person. He’s going to ruin Langford and Tommy with the knowledge that Tommy isn’t his son. She says she will stop him. Tommy knows that is impossible And he leaves. And she sees a shadow:

“Penelope spoke in the darkness, ‘How long before he hears that I had a gentleman caller at eleven o’clock?’

The housekeeper came into the light but did not speak for a long moment. When she did, it was with all calm. ‘I sent word to the club upon Mr. Alles’s arrival.’ ” (207)

Yeah well, Penelope is gonna bring the fight to Bourne. Worth realizes that Tommy is not Penelope’s lover, and Penelope says she’s also realized that Worth is not sleeping with her husband. Worth is aghast. No interest. She works there because he gave her a job after she got into trouble with a man at the club. Ah, the club. Penelope wants Worth to tell her where the club is. It takes some convincing, but Worth coughs up the location and helps her disguise herself.

It’s about to go down.

Bourne is actually beating himself up about the situation from the hallway at Tottenham’s. She thinks he was just using her, but he was actually out of control when they were alone. The other three partners are there, giving him shit about why he isn’t home with his missus, though he keeps repeating how it’s just a marriage to get Falconwell and ruin Langford (even he isn’t believing this so much anymore). Finally, Cross asks if she’s ugly or dull, and Chase, who is somehow acquainted with Penelope, says Penelope is not. Cross is in full smartass mode and says that if Penelope wants children, he is willing to do her and boom, they’re rolling on the floor smacking each other. Oh, but that ends quickly, because the message from Worth shows up and, yeah, just as expected, he loses his shit at the thought that Tommy was in his house. He’s heading for the door to go home, when Chase mentions that there’s a problem at the roulette table. I bet you can guess exactly what the problem is!

Btw, the new chapter starts here, and it’s the first of Penelope’s letters that went unsent. She writes several more letters, but never sends them to him.

Penelope is having a blast. She’s found adventure, and she’s found his raven-haired goddess—it’s the club. Hell, she’s even winning. Bourne makes it downstairs just in time to catch a man pawing his wife, who is concealed in a cloak and not recognizable. He pulls the man away from her, threatens him, and then pulls her away into an alcove. And she’s surprised at how disheveled he is. Bourne is nothing if not perfectly attired at all times. Temple has even teased him about it. She’s watching him come unraveled.

He confronts her about Tommy, and tells her to never see him again. She says she won’t follow that order, and he threatens to ruin Tommy if she sees him again. Ah, now she lets him know that she knows he plans to do that anyway. He says he knows Tommy asked her to run away. We know she had no intention of running away (it’s always been Bourne) but she’s not going to give him the satisfaction of that: “Why? Wouldn’t it be easier for you if I left with him? Then you could get your revenge and your freedom in one wide swath” (230). She has a point.

Nah, “you’re mine,” he says.

She admits that Tommy missed him when he disappeared, and more than that, she missed him, but he just abandoned her. That shakes him. He finally lets her go, and she runs out into the darkness, and smack into Cross, who has her winnings from the roulette table. She asks him to get her a hack and he knows that Bourne would kill him for sending her out into the London street with £35 (that’s about £4,000 nowadays), so he takes her home. Cross surprises her, because he tells her that she is remarkable. Why? “Only that the woman who sets Bourne so completely on edge must be something remarkable indeed.” Oh, but she doesn’t believe him.

Cross is interesting. I’m trying to figure out who I’d imagine for him, and I’m torn between Arthur Darvill (also here) and Sam Heughan (here, too). Maybe a dash of Eddie Redmayne. Back, squirrel, back!

Now Bourne and Temple are in the boxing ring in the basement of the hell, because clearly Bourne feels like he needs the hell knocked out of him? Temple is being a smartass and instigating his fury by noting that Cross took Lady Bourne home. But there’s more than anger—there’s guilt, “the emotion he’d feared since the beginning of the charade.” He’d treated her poorly. Because when she told him that she’d missed him, he had to admit to himself that he’d missed her, too. And when he saw her at Falconwell, he had wanted her on a physical level, but that had turned into something deeper. His friends see the change in him, particularly that, for the first time, he has admitted that he’s wrong. And they counsel him on the fact that he hasn’t quite ruined all chances with her if he would just TRY to be a decent husband. And that starts first thing the next morning, when he begs to accompany her and her sisters ice skating. She doesn’t trust him, so she declines. “Name your price” he says, anything for one afternoon with her. Of course, she asks him not to ruin Tommy. He says he’ll wait a week. And he gets a break when the sisters want him to accompany them. So, out they go, his face all banged to hell from his round in the ring with Temple. She’s hella pissy at him and won’t even let him help her with her skates. He’s being as accommodating as possible, because he knows he created this monster. She doesn’t believe anything he says. (I legit don’t blame her.) Although she keeps reminding herself that none of this is real, they spend a nice afternoon on the ice (running into Donovan West again—he insinuates he knows the marriage isn’t what it appears, but Bourne isn’t concerned). Then they go back to her family home and play charades. He actually enjoyed himself, and enjoyed being with her. And, she’s realizing she’s falling in love with him (though we all know she’s been in love with him far damned near 20 years at least). Everything seems good, right?

Yeah, nope.

See, Penelope has learned that love is hell: “ . . . this love was not euphoric. It was painful” (290). #facts

She can’t trust him. He’s been a bad guy, a manipulative, uncaring POS for 9 years. Can he change? Who knows, cuz my girl avoids him for the next week.

So, he’s on the other side of the door, listening to hear if she’s in her room, which is driving Mrs. Worth batty: “It’s perfectly obscure—the reason why both of you spend so much time on opposite sides of that door, listening for the other” (296).

But things are about to get interesting, because his father-in-law wants to see him. Needham is ready to give up the paper already, since Pippa is betrothed to Castleton, even though he’s a straight up booby head, and Olivia and Tottenham are getting hella close. Needham also coughs up some intriguing 411: he says that the reason he attached the land to her dowry was because Needham KNEW that would make Bourne come back and marry her. (Holy crap, Dad, seriously, there’s other ways to hook people up.) But Needham says he knew Bourne would appreciate the land, and “ . . . you were the one she liked best” (301). MIND. BLOWN.

So did he go back and take care of his wife? Nope, he GOES TO THE ANGEL. ARGH . . . but something does happen. Worth delivers a card to Penelope, telling her to get in a carriage at 11:30 p.m. She dresses in a salmon-colored gown, which saved the cover for me (yeah, I’m dramatic; y’all haven’t figured that out yet?). Okay, so 2021 me is like, hellllls no, I am not answering some mysterious summons so y’all can find my bones in the desert in a few years. But yeah, Penelope figures it’s a message from her husband (girl, you really don’t know him, do you?), goes, and ends up . . .  at the club. Okay, maybe I am too distrustful, and it’s Bourne summoning her—yeah, nah. She gives the password on the invite, and soon runs into Cross, who knows who she is, mask or no. He tells her the invitation was not from her husband, and takes her to the billiard room on this side of the club. See, this is the “Other Side,” where society women pay big $ to be free, drink, gamble, screw, watch boxing, you name it. Cross leads her into a billiards room, where a grumpy AF Bourne is waiting for Cross, and is shocked when she walks in. This scene is SM gold, because she’s being a smart ass, Bourne is being a pill, and Cross is freaking hilarious and making me love him (so glad book 2 is about him). The whole time these two are bickering, Cross is throwing in snide remarks. Oh, and we learn CHASE sent the invitation to get these two to communicate. Chase is clearly the partner with the most pull. And Chase is right, because once Cross gets booted from the room, these two finally TALK, and he admits that he knows he’s wrong for her.

“ He closed his eyes and whispered, ‘You deserve better.’

So much better than me.

‘Michael,’ she said softly, ‘there’s no one better. Not for me.’ ” (325)

And they move upstairs to the owners’ suite. Okay, I LOVE that room. It is lit by an enormous stained glass window with an image of Lucifer being cast into hell. You can see the pit floor from it, though you cannot tell it’s a window from the floor. It covers the room in color. There are three fireplaces, which actually make me think of Hogwarts (don’t judge), but that’s not a bad thing. And they come together (see below), and finally, everything is perfect. He even tells her about what happened after he lost his fortune and disappeared. She tells him how she feels about him, how she actually chose him. He doesn’t believe her. He thinks she is perfect. She doesn’t believe him. Someone knocks on the door to tell him that Langford is there. You KNOW this won’t end well. She’s begging him not to ruin Tommy, but this is all he’s ever wanted—Langford’s ruin. Even though she tells him she loves him . . .

Ah, Constant Reader, you know what time it is. We are verging into spoilers now. So, it’s up to you to get the book and learn what happened! But it’s good, and sets you up for the other books in the series, which I also love (particularly 2 and 4, though all are good).

 

-----------------------------

Now, let’s head to the SEX-AND-SPOILERS section. Don’t read if you’re easily offended. Don’t read if you don’t want it spoiled. I warned you.

 


 

Reminder, don’t continue if you don’t want to hear about sex and/or you don’t want to hear about the ending. Second reminder: these are primarily HEAs, which means H (Hero) and h (heroine) are getting together before the last page. Okay, so here it comes . . .

Sex

Yeah, so they consummate the marriage around the 40% point. Bourne shows off his strength by ripping her nightgown off her (seriously, I want a show of hands. How many of you have had your man rip your clothing off you—consensual, of course?). Bourne is still feeling a little fragile about the fact that he thinks she was engaged to Tommy, which gives us this masterpiece: “I’m going to make love to you on this fur. You’re going to feel it against every inch of you. And the pleasure I give you will be more than you’ve ever imagined. You will cry my name as it comes” (171). Then he kind of kills the mood by methodically removing his clothes and arranging them neatly on the nearby chair. Lord, this man is hella type A with clothing. By the time he turns around, she’s trying to cover her nakedness with her hands, but no, he never wants her to hide herself from him (brownie points there, my man, thank you).

Oh, and he wants to make sure she calls him by name throughout this entire thing. My boy is legit feeling fragile, ain’t he? And it’s not skin off her nose, because he’s really the only man she she’s ever dreamed about. Okay, so there’s one thing. The whole act of first time sex (hell, any sex actually) on a fur coverlet just made me think of what a bitch that mofo has got to be to clean. I really don’t think that’s worth the freak-a-leek. Maybe they’ve got some early 19th century Febreze or something? Anyway, no matter about that; SM does a good job with the description, though it’s not overly erotic. Probably because she doesn’t want us to be distracted by the sex act here, since the emphasis is on what it’s doing to Bourne—this is blowing his mind. And freaking him out:

Dear God. It had been the most incredible sex he’d ever had.

It had been mind-altering.

It had been more than he’d ever imagined it could be.

And the very idea that such an experience had come with Penelope spread cold fear through him.” (175)

Awww, my boy is catching feelings. Well, join the club.

The second time is at the owners’ suite, after Chase summons Penelope to the “Other Side” for billiards/to confront her husband. FINALLY. So the room is bathed in color from the stained glass window, and Bourne is finally letting loose. She’s feeling powerful, because he wants her and he’s not ashamed to let her know. After a little voyeurism (watching the erotic happenings on the floor), he starts to undress her. She’s feeling self-conscious, but when she bares herself, “he went still, his eyes roaming on her body, finally settling on her face before he said, reverently, ‘You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’ ” (334). Oh, but he wants her to keep the stockings on. Nice. And he’s finally admitting his feelings, that he’s wanted to come home and take her to bed (which is why he’s been boxing with Temple, repressed sexual tension). He knows he could easily become addicted to her.

And yay, she wants to touch him too. Seriously, ladies, don’t miss out. Jus sayin.

This isn’t hot-and-heavy freaky sex. It’s sweet-but-hot.

Some spoiler-y things

I’m going to be an asshole and make you read the book to learn how it ends. I mean, duh, it’s a HEA, so you know they end up together, but it’s not an easy path to that. But will Langford and Tommy be ruined? Will Penelope and Bourne learn to trust and love each other?

But, spoiler: he saved all her letters. Aw. 💕

The next book: One Good Earl Deserves a Lover

So, SM’s epilogues are important. They are basically prologues to the next book. This one starts with Cross waking up in his office at the club, half naked, with a pretty woman sitting at his desk, going through his ledger. Well, hell, it’s PIPPA! Who he KNOWS shouldn’t be there, because Bourne (and Penelope) would murder him—happily—if they found her with him (oh, and she’s engaged to Castleton, remember). Well, she’s there for a purpose: he’s a notorious rake who has a reputation for being in and out of nearly every bed in London, and Pippa wants to be ruined. (Note: I freaking love Pippa. So I screamed when I read this epilogue. And CROSS? He seems so awesome, and he’s ginger! Okay, so the obsession with being ginger goes back to Doctor Who. I told you I was a nerd.)

Related

This series is connected to some of her other books, particularly the Love by Numbers series, and you’ll see familiar names and locations pop up in other books.

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