Fractured familial relationships!

Along Came a Lady (All the Duke’s Sins #1) by Christi Caldwell       

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Orphaned, illegitimate children ignored and left to fend for themselves! Why does their father, the Duke of Bentley feel some eighteen years after their mother’s death, that he should bring them his children by his mistress the fold? As we are told in the first line, “Rafe Audley hated the Duke of Bentley.” It had fallen to him to protect and raise his siblings from the time he was thirteen. Life was harsh and requests for help from the child Rafe to their father had been deafeningly ignored. Now Rafe and his brother successfully lead a team of coal miners brokering wages and working conditions with the owners . 

Imagine Rafe’s antipathy that years later the Duke wants to acknowledge them. This from a man they have never seen in all their lives. Rafe has continually refused to be involved and repudiated all the Duke’s efforts. He is scathingly angry and refuses to have anything to do with the man who left them to suffer, the man who threw them away. The man didn’t care if they lived or died.

Refusing to accept Rafe’s decision, the Duke changes tack and employs Edwina Dalrymple, the equivalent of a modern life style coach, who prepares young  daughters from wealthy families and / or newly minted nobility to confidently run the gauntlet of polite society. When the Duke and Duchess approach her to bend her considerable abilities towards inducing Rafe to come to London, and to train him to be able to take his place in society, the thought of gaining a foot into the hitherto closed paths to even more elevated ton families finally persuades her.

Her stance with Rafe is often hilarious, and her final push is completely underhanded. I was both shocked and impressed by her campaign. Talk about an iron fist in a velvet glove!

The thing is Edwina has her own raft of secrets, and this position with the Duke will consolidate her reputation, bringing her larger plan to fruition. What Edwina didn’t plan on was the feelings she would have for the stubborn Rafe and his siblings.

An interesting switch on the governess / make over “preparing a young woman for society,” read lower class riff raff, type trope.

I was amused at times, floored at others. A very different and original plot!

A Berkley Group ARC via NetGalley