Dawn with a Duke – Traditional Lady No More

And I’m back with another book in this series finished. Despite the feel-good stories and romance this series uses, it’s easy to get repetitive after a while but this one felt like a fresh new take without dropping the entire theme.

En route to Cressmouth, a snowstorm hits, and Lady Isabelle must make a stop at the local inn with her maid until it clears. When her maid falls ill with the flu, Belle is left to fend for herself. Since she is the sister of the famous Duke of Nottingvale, there is no doubt she is treated like property and doesn’t get much say in where her life will go. This is the 1800s, after all.

To avoid scandal, she poses as a widow and finds it a struggle to live like a pauper in a simple inn while her maid recovers. She then meets Calvin, an aspiring tailor and enlists him to help her button and unbutton her dress before and after her bath as she’s never been able to do it herself. And that is why you don’t wear dresses with buttons on the back!

I think Belle is far too paranoid about her reputation until I learned that she had an interest in painting, but as a woman, her art kept getting rejected by potential promoters. However, when she discovers Calvin’s talent, they decide to work together.

Calvin’s committed, I’ll give him that. He has a lot of barriers in the beginning until he starts to fall for Belle. She just sees it as an affair once the snow clears and she can leave. It isn’t until she gets her maid back that she realizes she loves him and starts to think for herself.

Of course, she waited until after a steamy night with Calvin to tell him the truth, but that’s another lesson learned. It’s like in the beginning, she didn’t believe he would actually be in love with her or remember her afterward. She always put duty first, even if it meant only marrying for it. I’m glad she began to realize toward the end that her own happiness was more important to the point where it’s like “to hell with what my mother thinks, I love Calvin and together we will make his fashion line a success.”

The Duke of Nottingvale is pretty gruff, not going to lie. His own story is in the 12th book, so we’ll see how much of that he retains.

A well-done story with a nice change of pace.