THE LADY FLEES HER LORD

Author: Michèle Ann Young ISBN: 9781402213991 10/2008 HISTORICAL Publisher: SOURCEBOOKS CASABLANCA
Time Period: Regency London, 1811

Running from a husband who abuses her because she is unfashionably tall and big and has failed to produce an heir, Lucinda, Lady Denbigh, rescues a street urchin and poses as a widow with a small daughter. Reclusive ex-soldier Lord Hugo Wanstead is back from the Peninsular Wars with a wound that won't heal and a seeming inability to stop drinking. When he encounters Lucinda, they both feel they've been offered a second chance, but when her husband discovers where she is, her life, her love, and her adopted child could all be destroyed ...

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Lord Denbigh wants nothing more from his wife Lucinda than her family's money. And when he can't get all of it, he takes to putting her down and hurting her in any way that he can. But Lucinda will not be publicly humiliated, so she runs. Along the way she is given a gift that she thought she could never have.

Lord Hugo is a man not only physically hurt by war, but also emotionally hurt from his past. He wants nothing more than to be left alone to pick up the pieces of his family's shattered estate. So when he returns home and meets the new widow who is living on his property, her invasion is at first, an unwelcome surprise, but then she somehow gets into his very soul and he needs her.

I thought this was a well-written story with a great storyline and characters. The middle of the book kind of got wordy, but it definitely was a keeper.

Sheila Smith