The Matter of a Marquess
Series: The Duke's By-Blows #3
Author: Jess Michaels
Published August 18th 2020 by The Passionate Pen LLC

Goodreads Synopsis
Viscountess Aurora Lovell has been in love with one man her entire life, but life intruded and never allowed her to be with him. She came to accept it, marrying for title rather than love. Now a widow, she’s busy trying to figure out how to manage a scandal about to destroy her world when she is invited to a country party. Desperate to escape the realities of her life, she accepts.

Nicholas Gillingham has always lived his life between two worlds. Raised by a servant, but secretly the bastard son of the infamous Duke of Roseford, he never felt he belonged. Injured saving others, he is now a war hero and improbably in line to be gifted a title for his service. A way to never feel so helpless as he did when he lost Aurora the first time. But to influence the right people, he needs his brother’s help and finds himself at a country party.

Time and distance mean nothing when Aurora and Nicholas meet again. But can they overcome a tangled past filled with bitter betrayal, a scandal that could ruin the future AND a very intrusive dog in order to find their way back to each other? Or will love be just as painful the second time around?
Goodreads

Review
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way impacted on my view.

The Matter of the Marquess is the story of another of the late Duke of Roseford's bastards, Nicholas Gillingham, who is up for a title, the defunct Marquess of Songstrum, after his bravery, and subsequent injuries, during the Napoleonic Wars. He needs the connections of his half-brother, the current Duke, to help him gain this title, which he needs in order to finally feel as though he has some power. As a youngster, he was raised by his step-father, the man of affairs to the Earl of Bramwell, and was educated alongside the Earl's children, including his beautiful daughter, Aurora. Both Nicholas and Aurora were in love, and wished to marry, but Bramwell completely refused him, because he had no title, and Aurora was to marry Viscount Lovell. Aurora never knew Nicholas had been refused, and always thought he abandoned her to a loveless marriage. She never forgot Nicholas, and wished him well during his long recovery, even when her own husband died, and left her in a difficult situation. With her and her best friend, Isobel, both widowed and penniless, they need to do whatever they can to survive, and this leaves Isobel falling into the clutches of brothels, and going missing. While searching for Isobel in the most notorious brothel of all, Aurora is seen, and the scandal is too much. She is invited to the Roseford's for a house party by the benevolent Duchess, and meets Nicholas again. Will they manage to talk through their past, and lost love, or will the nearly 10 years of anger be too much?

I think this might be my favourite of The Duke's By-Blows series. Both of the main characters were so intriguing, especially Nicholas who we had met before, and I was wholly invested in their love story from the get go. Perhaps their relationship as children and young adults was part of this, but their story felt the most natural and real of them all. Aurora was a character you couldn't help but love, who had been dealt a difficult hand in life, but was managing through it all. Her husband was not kind, and left her with nothing, and it was only the little help her family could give her that helped her survive more comfortably than her friend, Isobel. Aurora cared for all those in her life who she loved, and Nicholas was no different in this. She'd always, and would always love him, and when he was injured, it broke something inside of her. For Nicholas, it was very much the same, also. When the shell exploded, and he thought he would die, Aurora was his last thought, and the effort he put in to try and gain the title was in order to take back some of the control he sorely lacked when he first offered for Aurora. Together, throughout this book, they work through their past issues, and rekindle their lost love, once and for all. The introduction of the Roseford children as a true family was clearly evident too, and I'm really looking forward to the fourth book, The Redemption of a Rogue, which I think is about the eldest bastard, Oscar Fitzhugh and Isobel.

Dates Read:
July 28-29, 2020

Rating
4 Stars