*** 1/2 - Cover look familiar? That's probably from my Waiting on Wednesday post back in January. Thank goodness I finally managed to find and read this sequel to The Education of Mrs. Brimley! Although the marriage of convenience story isn't as close to my heart as the artist, The Seduction of a Duke managed to capture my heart with a heroine who loves fairy tales!American heiress Francesca Winthrop was going to marry for love, but her domineering mother had social-climbing plans. So when English duke William Chambers showed up looking for a fortune to discharge his father's unpaid debts, a marriage of convenience is inevitable. But despite their initial attraction, Franny and William have a bumpy road ahead - he's convinced she is carrying another man's baby, and she's determined to get with child as soon as possible so that she can return home... trouble ensues...
I was wary of The Seduction of a Duke to begin with. After all William took some thoroughly unpleasant actions in The Education of Mrs. Brimley both in his advances toward Emma and the way he treated his brother's painting. So I admit that I was a hard sell on the idea that William should be granted a Happily Ever After. But despite all of that, I really liked the characters that Donna MacMeans gives us here. William's story really touched me as he suffered from being 'the responsible one' as a child always answerable to a cruel father, including for the mistakes of his wayward younger siblings. Then on top of that, he was betrayed by his first wife leaving him mistrustful of everyone - including himself.
Franny is a fascinating and multi-faceted character. She is terrified of crowds and being stared at in society, so much so that she closes herself off and becomes known as Frosty Fanny. Yet underneath her fear is a warm and intelligent woman who adores translating children's fairy tales. She yearns for her first love, who has left her to marry another woman, and she decides to take her fate into her own hands and ruin herself. Unfortunately for her, she ends up choosing her intended groom - and now she tries to tempt him into her bed with the help of a courtesan's diary and a very sexy corset.
See? The characters are lovely and deep. And once they stopped fighting one another, I truly believed that they could make it together. Unfortunately, they spent an awful lot of time embroiled in one Big Misunderstanding. William won't ask her if she's pregnant with someone else's child, nor will he believe her when she declares that she isn't. After all, a virgin couldn't know anything about what would turn a man on, now would she? And Franny isn't a whole lot better about actually talking to her husband about her troubles, which can be quite frustrating. Realistic - but frustrating.
There are several wonderful scenes in The Seduction of a Duke - the two sharing an intimate moment when she tells him a fairy tale, William helping her to overcome her fear of people, Franny conspiring with Nicholas to show William the error of his ways, the fan war (oh, I LOVED the fan war - it's about time a romance author used the not-so-secret language of fans in her plotline!)... but it takes some time for Franny and William both to actually talk to each other instead of jumping to instant conclusions. I'm glad I stuck it out in the end (I'm still in love with Nicholas, after all), but it's not the sort of plotline I usually enjoy much.
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