"Regency Romance at its Best"

The Duke of Tresham and Lord Oliver are facing each other with weapons in hand when a woman screams demanding that they stop the duel. Distracted, the Duke looks to see who is yelling at them. Lord Oliver shoots him in the leg. For her punishment, he hires the woman, Jane Ingleby, to nurse him for the three weeks of his incarceration. The Duke, Jocelyn, is used to giving orders but finds that he is more often than not on the wrong side of an argument with the lovely Jane. She intrigues him and he does not know what to believe when she tells him she grew up in an orphanage. She has all of the accomplishments of a lady.

Jane, Lady Sara, has run away after a confrontation with the wicked Earl of Durbury's son, thinking that she may have killed him. The Earl has the bow street runners searching for her. She is happy to have three weeks of employment with the toplofty duke. When he offers her a house and his protection, with some stipulations, she agrees. They become lovers and she finds facets to the duke's personality that no one else has ever seen. He desperately wants to keep her at arms length as his mistress only but finds it very difficult to keep Jane in her place.

The breathtaking books of Mary Balogh are not to be missed. All of her previous novels reside on my keeper shelves and this one is a welcome addition. She writes about the regency period with such charm, encompassing a lot of romantic tension as well as heart-stopping romance into her stories. Jane is a wonderful heroine, feisty and caring; Jocelyn is a hero to be remembered for his sensitivity masked by his arrogance. As much as I love his sensitive side, I also love when he puts on a ducal air to intimidate when appropriate. Jocelyn is a charming man but Jane is his match in every way. Mary Balogh always surrounds her main characters with wonderful secondary characters who quite often get their own stories in future books. I am looking forward to her next novel, NO MAN'S MISTRESS, starring Jocelyn's younger brother, Ferdinand. I must admit MORE THAN A MISTRESS has an unfortunate cover but between the pages is all a romance reader could ask for and more.

Reviewed by Marilyn Heyman
Posted August 28, 2001

Summary

In her most captivating novel to date, Mary Balogh, the premier writer of Regency romance, invites you into a world of scandal and seduction, of glittering high society and intrigue, as an arrogant duke does the unthinkable ó he falls in love with his mistress.... She raced onto the green, desperate to stop a duel. In the melee, Jocelyn Dudley, Duke of Tresham, was shot. To his astonishment, Tresham found himself hiring the servant as his nurse. Jane Ingleby was far too bold for her own good. Her blue eyes were the sort a man could drown in ó were it not for her impudence. She questioned his every move, breached his secrets, touched his soul. When he offered to set her up in his London town house, love was the last thing on his mind.... Jane tried to pretend it was strictly business, an arrangement she was forced to accept in order to conceal a dangerous secret. Surely there was nothing more perilous than being the lover of such a man. Yet as she got past his devilish facade and saw the noble heart within, she knew the greatest jeopardy of all, a passion that drove her to risk everything on one perfect month with the improper gentleman who thought love was for fools.