Dreams and fortunes, lost and found!

The Dueling Duchess (Wicked Women of Whitechapel #2) by Minerva Spencer           

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Manon Cecile Tremblay Blanchet and Gaius Darlington, the Marquess of Carlisle, the Darling of the Ton. Their story is essentially a second chance romance with heaps of moving parts. 

Cecile is a French duchess by a sorry set of circumstances. Married at fourteen, in 1794, to the aged Duc de La Fontaine as he lay dying in the notorious French prison, La Force. 

Cecile is a sharp shooter extraordinaire and a feisty woman who has had to make her way in the world from the time she and her father left Paris just after the marriage. Her father was personal gunmaker to Lewis XVI. He taught Cecile everything. He perished in the attempt to reach England. Her cousin was supposed to help Cecile, instead he stole her father’s designs then kicked her out.

Now, twenty-two years after Cecile left Paris she is a member of the Farnham’s Fantastical Female Fayre, as a sharp shooter.

The Fayre is going to Paris. Sin, the Duke of Staunton, needs to find out if his brother Ben is still alive. Guy is going with him. They are going incognito as circus roustabouts and assistants.

In this period Cecile and Guy become lovers, no strings attached. To keep the Dukedom financially viable he however has to marry an heiress. Cecile was insulted when Guy wanted to take a wife and keep Cecile as his mistress. She despised him for trying to have his cake and eat it. Exit Guy from her life.

Later Guy finds out that he’s not the heir to the Dukedom and it’s responsibilities, because a cousin who's turned up appears to have all the requisite papers. So Guy breaks off his engagement to the heiress, settles his mother and his two sisters who are unmarried, and gets himself rehired by Cecile again as a general dogsbody in the Fayre. More adventures!

Things begin to happen. The new duke is removing family treasures in the middle of the night. No-one wants to know including the family solicitors. Cecile is being pressed to marry by an old foe of Guy’s. 

Blade and Eliot are still around proving remarkably elusive and yet adapt at sussing out information.

Just when things are settling down, Cecile’s title comes into play.

An enjoyable read, although somewhat confusing. I found myself looking back to see what happened when. The plot wanders between the past and the present quite readily, I not so much. I often lost my place between the times. Ah well!

A Kensington Books ARC via NetGalley.                                              

Many thanks to the author and publisher.