The Rake's Bargain

by Lucy Ashford

The stage is set

Deborah O'Hara loves her life, leading her troupe of actors. But when she becomes entangled in a web of secrets spun by the rakishly handsome Damian Beaumaris, Duke of Cirencester, she is forced to play the hardest role of her life: that of the stunning but disloyal Paulette, the duke's widowed sister-in-law.

To regain the honor of his family, Beau needs Deb's help. But despite his intentions to let nothing distract him from his plan, he doesn't bargain on the forbidden sparks that fly with his beautiful leading lady….

"Outrageous, interesting and tremendous fun." —Fresh Fiction on The Outrageous Belle Marchmain

Genres: Romance, Historical Romance, Harlequin, Harlequin Historical, Regency

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book felt really schizophrenic. The two main characters sine-waved back and forth between different extreme behaviors with no in-story justification for the shifts. And the plot felt extremely contrived in places, like the author really wanted to portray a particular scene and jumped through whatever hoops were necessary to make it happen, regardless of what it did to the flow of the narrative. And the ending got so saccharine that it would have been right at home in a cozy romance.



Ok so I really liked the beginning of this book. It opened with an interesting action sequence of the heroine, Deborah, breaking into the house of a rich man, who happens to be her long estranged uncle and is also the local magistrate and is threatening Deb’s band of actors with imprisonment. Thanks to her family connection with him, she knows he’s got a secret room in his house that no one is allowed to enter. Deb rightfully concludes that he keeps something scandalous in that room and she intends to use it to blackmail him into dropping the charges. Unfortunately, the hero, Beau, is galloping toward the house as Deb is making her escape and her two simpleton companions mistake him for the uncle and knock him from his horse and tie him up.

I was sucked into the story right away, despite the kind of awkward and contrived plot. I mean, the fact that the uncle not only had a library full of illegal books but actually inscribed his name on them as well was beyond unbelievable. And it was pretty far-fetched for Deb’s friends to be stupid enough to mistake a man in his early 30’s for a guy in his 50’s just because he was riding a similar-looking horse. But I liked both the main characters. Deb was smart, resourceful and kind and Beau was instantly captivated by her scent, voice and touch, even before his blindfold was removed and he could see her.

One thing leads to another and soon Beau is free and using the threat of imprisonment to force Deb into agreeing to impersonate her cousin, Paulette, to whom she bears a striking resemblance, and who happens to be Beau’s late brother’s widow. He tells her that Paulette seduced his brother into marriage but then immediately started cheating on him and left him in London so she could carry on with her lovers in the country. And that she’d also made off with some family heirloom jewels. When his brother died unexpectedly, the heartless Paulette didn’t even come to his funeral. Both Beau and Paulette’s family put it about that she was so stricken with grief that she couldn’t come but the more time that passes, the more scandalous this becomes. So Beau’s big idea is to have Deb come to London as Paulette and play the grieving widow, while also figuring out where the missing jewels are. It’s a matter of family honor and what his poor dead brother deserves.

This was all okay to start with. In the beginning, although Beau believed Deb to be a prostitute as well as an actress and occasional highway robber, he still treated her with respect, while also being intractable about his purpose. He even defended her honor to her uncle. They shared a few moments while at her uncle’s house and it seemed like Beau could see the real her and appreciate her for who she is. And their stolen kisses were great. All this was good.

Then the schizophrenia set in. Beau suddenly turned into a hateful bastard for no reason at all. Nothing happened to affect the change, he just did a complete 180. For the next part of the book their every interaction is Beau saying something nasty and judgmental and Deb getting pissed off and trying to slap him. Beau frequently makes reference to the "fact" that she's a whore who is used to selling herself to the highest bidder and accuses her of trying to entice him into kissing her because she's just that kind of girl.

His accusations get pretty ridiculous, like when she slipped out to go for a swim in the secluded lake and he rides by and sees her. He tries to assert that she somehow predicted that he'd a) finish his business meeting earlier than expected, b) choose to take the path through the woods that she had no way of knowing about, and c) be able to see the lake and her in it from said road. All to try to entice him into coming to ravage her because she's such a slut. Wow.

Even better was when he forced her to wear super-revealing clothes. They're black “widow’s weeds” because she’s supposed to be in mourning, but Beau deliberately had them made with plunging necklines because, according to him, that’s what Paulette would have worn. (This doesn’t make sense to me though since the whole point is that he’s putting on a fiction about Paulette being a proper grieving widow so why not have her wear the proper thing along with everything else?) Deb hated being so exposed but he didn’t give her a choice, callously reminding her that she's a whore and an actress so she should be used to putting herself on display. So she tries to cover up with sweaters and shawls but anytime they slip, Beau says she did it deliberately to entice him. Seriously, WTF man? “You must wear these clothes, I command it! What? You’re wearing them? You slut! You’re just trying to seduce me, aren’t you!”

Honestly there was NOTHING redeemable about Beau during this part of the book, but, while all this is going on we're expected to believe that Deb is still so desperately attracted to him that she melts into a quivering puddle in his presence. I didn't believe. I don't care how handsome the man is, when he's treating you like dirt, you shouldn't be hot for him. It was especially hard to take Deb's pathetic longing for him when she'd started out as such a strong and self-possessed woman. She even, at one point, thinks that she really must be a whore at heart like Beau thinks she is, because she's so attracted to him. Wow. Just Wow.

So the romance came to a screeching halt during the middle of the book and once that had caused the scales to fall from my eyes, the contrived, hole-filled plot started to really bug me. So many issues are caused because Beau doesn't give Deb any information. He's asking her to impersonate Paulette, TO people knew Paulette, and yet he doesn't do anything to try to train her for the role. He doesn't discuss Paulette's mannerisms or likes and dislikes or explain how she and the dead brother met or anything really. How can she possibly act like another person if she doesn't know how that other person acted?? Time and again Deb gets caught not knowing something that Paulette would definitely have known, (like that Beau and his brother didn't actually get along), and she has to awkwardly try to talk her way out of it, when there was no reason for it. (Incidentally, it was another example of unbelievable plot contrivance that none of these people who catch Deb in lies ever catch on that she's not Paulette and they have no problem just re-explaining to her the stuff she should already know) Although, I should point out that Deb never actually asked for any of this information either, which is ridiculous. As an actress I would have expected her of all people to recognize that she needed some background in order to get in character.

Far later than was prudent, Beau finally tossed one of Paulette's old diaries at Deb but even that was a plot-hole-filled mess. Deb reads one section that makes it sound like Paulette was actually truly in love with the brother and eagerly awaiting her wedding...but then doesn't skip ahead to find out what happened to change that fact. The diaries are basically never mentioned again except for a one-sentence hand-wave about how they didn't contain anything else of value. How can that possibly be? Who spends time writing in a diary and doesn't reveal anything about themselves in the process?

Then Deb manages to get the jewels back from the jeweler Paulette gave them to but they're fakes because the brother had gambled the real ones away and replaced them with paste. Deb comes home and decides that the thing to do is hide these fakes in her room and lie to Beau about them not being ready yet. She does this because she "just can't bring herself" to tell Beau that his allegedly beloved brother was such a scoundrel. She has this tender "I must protect his poor wittle feewings" moment right in the midst of all the abuse he's been heaping on her. It doesn't make sense. What was she planning to do? Find the real jewels on her own? No, of course not. So she was just delaying the moment for no reason, which again felt like nothing more than plot contrivance.

The plot got even weirder, however. I expected that we were being set up for a Big Misunderstanding where Beau found the fake jewels in Deb's things and accused her of trying to steal them. But instead, we find out immediately that he already knew that they were fake and why and he's pissed that Deb didn't tell him the truth....but doesn't confront her about it. Instead he lets her walk away and the next scene is them going to a party where he corners the guy who's got the real gems and in - an alarmingly quick off-page scene - establishes the terms of their return to him. Then we're suddenly back at Beau's house and he's raging at Deb for not telling him the truth. WTF? What was the point of all that? Why would he refuse to confront her on the first day, only to come after her less than 24 hours later and with nothing happening in between to change their situation? What was the point of them even going to the party? It doesn't make sense for Beau to corner the guy in a public party when he knows where the jerk lives and could just drive to his house for a private meeting.

Beau is being his most asinine and hateful in this scene and again makes it sexual, even though he gave Deb his word after the last time that it would never happen again. She's in complete despair because she's miserable but also so powerless against her attraction to him that she succumbs to his onslaught. He's got her pressed down on the couch and in between kisses she begs and wails for him to leave her alone because she doesn't have the strength to deny him on her own and he coldly pushes forward because she's a fire in his blood, etc. etc.... And THEN, his 17 year old sister shows up unannounced and breaks up the moment.

Deb realizes she had a near miss, thank goodness, and after the sister leaves them alone again, Beau seems to agree. He decides that it's time for Deb to leave. No more playing Paulette. They've accomplished what they needed for the most part and it's clear Deb and Beau can't be around each other. Not to mention that Beau doesn't want his innocent sister corrupted by the whore of Babylon, Deb. So it's time to end things....except Deb suddenly starts begging him not to send her away. Whosajigawhat?? She starts flinging flimsy excuses at him about how he planned to hold a memorial service for the brother so it was "important" for her to be there, as if she cared about that. And then suddenly Beau does yet another 180 and suddenly begs HER to stay with HIM. Not to leave him alone that night. WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?

First he thinks she's a whore but still wants to sleep with her, then he thinks she's a whore unfit to be around his sister and who he's decided NOT to sleep with so he wants to send her away, and THEN he stops caring about the whore part and needs her so desperately on an emotional level that he begs her to stay? All in the space of a few minutes? What!? And Deb goes from hating him and begging him to let her go, to begging him to let her stay instead? Again, in just a few minutes? This doesn't make sense!

So they start sleeping together every night while more or less twiddling their thumbs for two weeks waiting for it to be time for the memorial service. It was blatant plot contrivance and was really boring. Deb thinks over and over about how hopeless her situation is. Beau says oblique things about how he can't bear the thought of not "having her in his life" but Deb knows that for aristocrats like Beau, there are only 3 kinds of women; wives, fashionable public mistresses and secret whores. And that she'd be in the last category because she was low-born and illegitimate. So if she stayed with him, she was looking at a lifetime of being hidden shamefully away in some little house, awaiting his next visit for a quick roll in the hay before he trotted off back to his real wife and family. But at the same time she can't bear the thought of never seeing him again because she loves him so dearly.

She also makes a couple of trips to see her actor friends, who are back in town....while dressed as Paulette, which didn't make sense. Beau had made a big deal about how important it was for "Paulette" to only be seen in appropriate situations to support the mourning widow thing, so why wouldn't Deb just change back into her old clothes before she went? Another place where I thought we were being set up for some drama that never materialized. But anyway the first visit to the actors was a contrived "we're falling apart without your leadership" session where two hours of her illustrious presence magically fixed everything. The second was when Beau's silly little sister went to the theater without her chaperone. Deb knows that's dangerous and that Beau would be furious if he found out so she rushes off to collect the wayward girl. While there, she runs into Jack. The guy who raped her when she was 17, thereby making her not a virgin. (As an aside, I didn't like this whole rape business. It was never given proper weight in the story. Deb never acted like someone who'd been raped. She wasn't afraid of Beau's touch etc. And after initially telling us that it WAS rape when it was first introduced, thereafter is was downgraded to Jack having "seduced" her. Lame.)

Deb exchanges a few words with Jack, then heads back home. Once there, the sister reveals that she knows Deb isn't Paulette because the friend she was with at the theater recognized her as the actress Deb O’Hara. This didn't make sense to me either, since the idea that someone would impersonate a peer of the realm is so far out there, why wouldn't the sister just say "no, that's my sister-in-law, Paulette. This actress you're referring to must just look a bit like her." But anyway, Deb agrees to keep the sister's outing a secret and in exchange asks her to keep secret the fact that she was talking with her old friends in the theater troop. I expected it to cause problems for Deb and Beau that she kept the sister's outing from him but, once again, it doesn't.

Instead, she comes home in time to overhear her uncle revealing that Paulette had been in love with Beau, not the brother, and that the brother had been on his way to challenge Beau to a duel when he'd died in the riding accident. Deb then has a terrible moment where she wonders if Beau loved Paulette back, and if he'd actually been thinking of her every time they'd made love this last week. But this potential conflict is immediately resolved when Beau comes to her and explains that no, he wasn't. Done and done. He also reassures Deb that her uncle's threats to reveal the scandal are meaningless because it'll hurt them just as much as him to have it spread about that their daughter was such a slut. And that all he needed to do was remind the uncle of that, once he'd calmed down. Sounds pretty good, right?

But no. Deb decides that she needs to take matters into her own hands by using the illegal books to blackmail her uncle into promising not to spread the gossip. Here again I thought we were being set up for some kind of exciting Big Misunderstanding but no. In the time it takes Deb to drive to the uncle's house and give an impassioned speech about what a fine, upstanding man Beau is, Beau has time to come home, discover she's missing, search her bag for the remaining 2 books, see the uncle's name on the inside, deduce what's really been going on, drive to the uncle's house, burst through the door and then stand outside the parlor listening to her defending his honor. Wow. He's good.

In the carriage on the way back home they have a diabetes level discussion about how they're both so wonderful and both so much to blame for the little misunderstanding about Deb being a prostitute. Deb also explains about her long-ago encounter with Jack and Beau is totally moved and believing that Deb detests Jack now. Then Beau says he's going to show her how much she means to him by coming to her bedroom that night....just like he's been doing every night for the last week so I didn't get why he thought this was some heartfelt declaration...

By this point Deb has resigned herself to being his secret whore for life. She's too desperately in love with him to walk away. She'll be his shameful secret and sit by in the shadows while he lives a full life in the sun with a wife and children...then the night of the brother's memorial service she catches the sister sneaking back into the house in the middle of the night. It soon comes out that she's been seeing Jack on the sly and they're in luuuurve. Deb does a lot of strange two-stepping around the issue before she finally buckles down and explains that Jack is a user and a cad who "seduced" her when she was 17 and is only interested in the sister for her money. The sister throws a tantrum and says she's going to tattle on Deb to Beau that she'd talked to her theater friends. Deb says that she knows and that she's leaving. WHAT?

What just happened here? She went from being 100% committed to living life as Beau's side piece because she loved him so much to "I'm leaving" in the space of 2 seconds? WHY? The reason seems to be that she feels she's done something unforgivable by talking to her theater friends and she's leaving before Beau throws her out. THIS MAKES NO SENSE. Why would Beau care that she talked to her theater friends? Even that she talked to Jack? Beau knows she hates Jack! There's no reason for her to think this, of all things, would be a relationship-breaker for them, but it's the end of the book and we've got to have some kind of climax so, this is it.

Beau shows up at her next theater performance, kisses her in front of everyone, and says that he's going to marry her. That other peers have married actresses so why not him. The scandal associated with it is hand-waved away, as is the fact that she looks nearly identical to his dead brother's wife. The wife everyone thinks has been staying with him these last few weeks while she's in mourning. Right, what could possibly go wrong with this plan? And it seems to be implied that he's going to allow her to continue acting after they're married, too, which is just ludicrous. Then they have another round of the ultra saccharine "it's all my fault" "no, really, it's all MY fault," for the end of the book. .

Oh, and Jack got away scot-free, aside from losing his acting gig with Deb's theater troop. Beau tracked him down, in another off-screen scene that we heard about after the fact, and apparently just told the guy who RAPED HIS FUTURE WIFE AND TRIED TO COMPROMISE HIS SISTER to just shove off. He did eventually give Jack a couple of bruises, but assures us it was only because Jack took a swing at him first. Wow, my hero.

And I have to say, I was pretty disappointed that the real Paulette never showed up to cause drama. Real wasted opportunity there.



This was such a bizarre book. So many things happened that could have been used to set up dramatic events but then were just glossed over. And what few things did happen, didn't make a whole lot of sense. The ending was especially lame because there was basically no final conflict. The romance was lame because of the radical emotional shifts undergone by both characters that weren't justified by narrative. All in all, just not a strong showing.

[Susete Kunkel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25⭐️
Not my type of book; however I gave read way worse.

[Ann Lockyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

An actual story for a change!

[Marsha · Rating 3 out of 5]

A girl in disguise manages to ensnare a duke traveling incognito. With this play off Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”, the stage is set for misunderstandings, betrayals, bitterness, sibling love, misplaced love, escapades and escapes.

There’s no mention of the Bard in the blurb, making this reader’s discovery of the similarities a delightful surprise. The novel’s take on its Shakespearean theme is subtly and masterfully done and, much like “Shakespeare in Love”, the storyline almost seems to inspire the play (portions of which appear intermittently throughout the novel) rather than vice versa.

The sparks between the two leading characters fly sharp and fast, mainly due to his anger towards another member of her sex. Throughout their interactions, the attraction between them gets even more heated, in part because they both are determined to stay away from each other. The nature of their bargain, the trouble it creates and the test of Deborah’s acting ability (she not only knows her lines but learns to improvise on the sly) make for a clever and telling plotline. This is a Regency romance with a difference and one that will appeal to people who like a hint of classical theater in their reading.

[Heather C · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I’m 1 for 2 with my Harlequin Historicals experience, which I guess is par for the course, but I was hoping this would be another good one, but alas this was more of a dud.

The opening scenes were pretty good and starts out with really the most action of the whole novel. There is a theft, a near escape, and a kidnapping by bumbling idiots that was rather enjoyable. However, once Beau drags Deb into his game of subterfuge, I began losing interest. The first half of The Rake’s Bargain feels a little like an overplayed rom-com (I personally kept drawing parallels to 90’s favorite She’s All That), which I could get behind if done right: guy uses unsuspecting girl to achieve his end game and doesn’t care what happens to the girl along the way, only for them to fall in love at the end. Unlike the rom-com though, I couldn’t find much of anything romantic or comedic about it. I actually kept wondering all the way through to the end how the heroine could find the guy to be even remotely interesting or could redeem himself. The way he treats her is not something I could overcome regardless of how beautiful he might be. She knows he is using her for an outcome that she can’t justify. I just couldn’t buy into the romantic element, that didn’t even begin to develop until over halfway through the book, because the guy was such an ass all the way through. I kept waiting for something more to happen, particularly for the woman she is supposed to be (Paulette) to show up, now that would have made things interesting!

I did like the heroine though. From the very beginning Deb is looking out for the good of her acting troupe and is willing to put her personal reputation on the line over and over to better their lot. It isn’t everyday that the main character is an actress and it was refreshing to see her use her skills both to delight audiences onstage and to move through this twisted mess with Beau more smoothly.

Ultimately I feel like there was a solid premise here, but it got lost in the details and ultimately wasn’t that enjoyable of a read for me in the end. With a romance you really need to buy into the motives of both of the characters involved and I certainly didn’t find that here.

Audiobook Discussion:
The saving element for this book was the audio presentation because, without that, I would have probably put it down despite its short length. While I was originally thrown off by the narrator’s accent, it fits appropriately with the setting and after a little bit I grew to accept it. Strevens does make an effort to create different voices for her various characters and pulls off her male voices acceptably (I’ve certainly heard worse!). Her reading pace I found to be appropriate and kept the plot moving. I did find that the pauses between tracks felt longer than necessary; I kept checking my iPod to make sure that it hadn’t accidentally paused on me only to have it then move on to the next track.

This review was previously posted on The Maiden's Court blog and a copy was received for review.

[Margib · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick but entertaining book The heroine was young but intelligent. The hero was less likeable but believable. Interesting story with a couple of diverting plot twists. I would have enjoyed having another chapter or two to be see how happily ever after was actually achieved.

[Harlequin Books]

"Light-hearted but with a serious edge, Ashford’s pleasant romance grabs readers with its action-packed beginning,..." (RT Book Reviews).

[Lynn Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5