A scandal to avoid a worse outcome, but still so much deceit…

Synopsis

Wallflower at risk of ruin…

Secret femme-fatale in training Millicent Whittenburg needs to escape her unpleasant betrothal. Taking matters into her own hands, she plans her eventual ruin! Then she can disappear from society to carry out the Queen’s deadly missions. Step 1: seduce the one man who despises marriage more than her!

However, she hugely underestimates her target. Major General Beaufort Drake. Fearsome private investigator, he’s notoriously cold and visibly battle scarred. But Millie’s scandalously public kiss awakens a deeply suppressed desire in Drake. Instead of allowing them both to succumb to shame he does the unthinkable, and offers for her hand in a convenient marriage.

Nothing prepares them for the fireworks when a fearless damsel collides with a dangerous Major General! And as their secret missions align they face their hardest test on the glittering battlefield – a week long wedding house party where there is nowhere to escape…only new and wicked lessons to be learnt!

My review

Millicent Whittenburg never expected that one day she would be forced by her father and stepmother into marriage. And that with a man she truly despises for so many different reasons. But as an event many years ago almost became her ruin, she has no other option. That is, no other than causing a scandal and force another betrothal by publicly kissing  Major General Beaufort Drake, a man that despises the thought of marriage above everything. But when Millie kisses him, Drake finds him doing the one thing he never expected him doing: offering a marriage as the kiss ignites something in him. However, what Drake doesn’t know is that Millie is secretly being trained to work for the Queen herself, and on a mission that clashes with Drake’s own mission as a private investigator. But what they don’t know is that they will have to face the biggest challenge of them all: hosting a weeklong wedding house party, where many secrets are still being kept and secrets are being discovered. Secrets that can bring them perhaps together, or even further apart…

I love it when in a book, the Lady of the story isn’t a damsel in distress, but a fierce woman, a woman that can literally fight and won’t stand up for any kind of BS.

And that is exactly the kind of young Millie is, even if she is only being trained in becoming that fierce woman. But we also clearly see that fire already burning in her, and with the protection and lessons of Lady Philippa Winterbourne, she is becoming a real force of nature.

Weren’t it for… Because there is always a ‘weren’t it for’, isn’t there?

And that ‘weren’t it for’ is a sad one. A sad one that truly angered me, because the people that should be protecting her, are the ones that are actually kind of selling her off to the highest bidder. It angered me because at a younger age, Millie made one mistake. A mistake she is still paying the price for.

But what angered me the most was the behaviour, the despicable behaviour of Millie’s stepmother Patricia. What an awful and deceitful person she is! Not only did she force a distance between Millie and her father, but she isn’t afraid of using violence.

All the while Millie just deserves all the love and kindness of the world. Luckily she can count always on Philippa, but also on her friends Hannah and Ivy always standing by her side and protect and fight for her. That also means come up with a plan to avoid marriage to a horrible man.

And thus Millie finds herself compromising herself in a situation that will hopefully give her a better outcome than her current prospect.

Of course Millie had to find a way out of her betrothal, but was it truly fair to lure someone else into the trap Lady Philippa set? Now, I understand the reasoning, and it was needed for the story, but still…

And to do that with Major General Beaufort Drake of all people… at first I thought he was a typical man, not wanting to give up his freedom and wanting to keep on using his skills as an investigator. A man of career, not wanting love to stop him.

However, the more I got to know the man, the more I realized that his physical scars are just the tip of the iceberg, because this magnificent man has loved in the past but has also been burnt by it. So could I really blame his reluctance in giving love another shot?

On the other hand, it was great to see that no matter how hard he is fighting against it, he cannot resist Millie. Not only is there the absolute physical attraction towards her, but also the ay he wants to protect her was just so sweet to see.

It is only fair to say that while for both Millie and Beau the weeklong wedding house party is a true nightmare, for us readers not only it was great chance to see them working as a pair, and getting small victories, but it was also great to see the attraction growing and even exploding!

There is also the mission both Millie and Beau are working on. A mission they don’t know they are both working on. While it is the same mission, to discover the responsible of the trafficking of young country ladies, they are seeking for a different kind of outcome. But it also means that they have to learn to trust each other, and rely on each other. Not an easy task, when they are so set on their independency!

I truly enjoyed reading this book, as it shows to never underestimate a woman. But it also shows that scars can run deep and it takes courage to put your trust in someone. We also see a lot of determination, passion, heart and complicity in it, making this a sequel living up to the expectations after the first book of the series!