Series:
Lyon's Den (Book 87)
She shattered his heart—now she's his perfect match.
Felix Seward, Duke of Kempbury, does not want to be at a
house party. Any house party. But the matchmaker Mrs. Dove Lyon has promised
him that his perfect match will be there, and Felix yearns for a wife.
He is horrified to find that the woman who meets the
matchmaker's description is Adaline Beverley. His nemesis. His Achilles heel.
The one woman on God's earth he will never marry. Not
after what she did last time they were betrothed.
This was a fast-paced novella of second chances, where
Mrs. Dove-Lyon brings together two people who were meant to be, despite their
rocky past.
The main characters, Felix and Adaline, were engaged ten
years ago, until her stepsister played a nasty trick on them. Felix believed Adaline
betrayed him and refused to listen to her side, walking away from her, and leaving
her at the mercy of Society's gossips. Felix's mistrust of women was mainly due
to his stepmother's actions, and these feelings spilled over into his
relationship with Adaline.
Ten years later, neither has quite moved on. Adaline
married another man shortly after the breakup, but has been a widow for several
years. She supports herself and her daughter by working as a private
investigator, specializing in retrieving stolen property from Society members.
But she is lonely and wants a father for her daughter, Melody. She hires Mrs.
Dove-Lyon to find her a suitable husband, in exchange for finding items stolen
from her. To do so, she attends a house party at the culprit's estate.
Felix has never married and is envious of his friends who
have found happy matches. Unwilling to enter the Marriage Mart and deal with
matchmaking mothers and empty-headed debutantes, he asks Mrs. Dove-Lyon to find
him a wife. He wants a woman who is more interested in him as a man than in his
title. She sends him off to a house party, promising him that his perfect match
will be there.
Needless to say, both Felix and Adaline are dismayed by
each other's presence. Felix still hasn't gotten over his feelings of betrayal,
and Adaline still resents his refusal to listen to her. But when he takes one
look at her daughter and realizes that he is her father, he knows he has to
talk to her. I liked the ensuing conversation. Adaline calmly lays out the
sequence of events, and Felix finally accepts the truth, sincerely apologizing
to her. I loved seeing them rekindle their relationship. There were some adorable
scenes with Felix and Melody, which looked promising for the future.
But there are still some twists in their future. Adaline
needs to complete her task for Mrs. Dove-Lyon. It is a tense situation, and I
enjoyed seeing how she pulled it off. However, not everything is smooth-sailing,
and Adaline's past comes back to bite her in a terrifying way. I was on the
edge of my seat as the scene played out, hoping that Felix would see the truth.
I loved Melody's part in the ending.
I enjoyed catching up a little with the characters from
Thrown to the Lyon who play a significant role in this story.
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