The hero isn't what's known as an over achiever. In fact, living under the shadow of his larger than life father and strong warrior brothers, the hero has always managed to feel a bit inadequate in all the things that seem to matter to his family. Instead, he's excelled at the wants. The pleasures to be had in his comfortable life. Women, wine and a general sense of freedom. When he sees the heroine, he sees a stern and plain woman who has the nerve to judge him. Charged as her escort on her journey to wales to claim her fathers keep, he takes an immediate dislike to the female and knows this distaste is returned. The heroine doesn't have time for luxury and laziness and when she takes one look at the hero, she sees a rather useless and vain creature who will only slow her down. She's not incorrect. If he's not stopped every few hours for a break and drink of wine, he's delaying their journey further by staying at the manor houses along the way to indulge in more wine or flirt with the females that reside there. He may be beautiful and he may be charming but to the heroine he is a disappointment and perhaps it's this stubborn dislike she has for him that attracts him so deeply. He may deny it and he may not completely understand his reasoning's but he sets about to tease the stern and sour woman, determined to a. annoy her as much as humanly possible and B. to show her that she's not as immune to him as she believes herself to be. Still, she wins most of the battles because despite his best intentions, her obvious disapproval of his behavior and the knowledge that she finds him severely lacking make him uncomfortable with himself.
When she recklessly ventures forth ahead of the traveling party, the hero must save her from a water rush and in the process, they discover themselves stranded with their servants and more importantly with the wine. This lack of the hero's go to drug has startling consequences on the hero's personality. In fact, without the general haze of being drunk all the time, he is able to see clearly for the first time and what he sees before him is a stunningly beautiful woman. What desire and connection he felt for her before has now been multiplied in abundance to the point where he can think of nothing but her. The heroine in turn is suddenly finding it harder and harder to resist her own desires as well. This man is no longer the spoiled and useless creature he was before. No, this is a man and paired with his newly discovered strength and his ever-present beauty she finds herself lost to the love that has been developing slowly over the passing days.
Wow, I did not expect this. One look at the cover and I anticipated a filler book, something to tick off in my reading challenge but one that I wouldn't really remember. I was wrong. From the start, I was hooked. The complex love/hate relationship between the characters was lovely to read and I felt they showed fantastic character growth over the span of the book until I could barely recognize them by the end. The biggest change? The hero. I did not like him at the start, probably as much as the heroine didn't like him. He was a very empty man when we first meet him, one filled with falsehoods and not much else. He was in a perpetual state of drunk haze and his addiction to the wine made him cope with his feelings of inferiority. The cover says it all, a charming and unrestricted man who thought of little else but wine and woman until one woman made all of that change. The heroine had an instant and jarring effect on the hero as much as he'd deny it. From the instant they met, he began to see her disapproval in him as something true and he unconsciously began to make changes because of it. But what really set him off was the lack of wine after the river disaster. I enjoyed and understood his character up to that point but after then, I can say that I loved him very much. The heroine herself was a lovely character. Sure she was stern and had a permanent frown on her face but she was exactly what the hero needed-just as fated decided. Together they have funny banter and more chemistry than any harlequin romance typically presents so it safe to say I was pleasantly surprised by this book and highly recommend it.