I read the beginning of this book and it just didn't ring right. The characters just didn't feel like real people or Regency people would act this way. I then read excerpts from within the book, including the end and none of it made me want to read the book. So I didn't read any more of it. I will read and finish books that I know aren't great but I won't finish books that are not somewhat enjoyable. It got 5 stars at Amazon for what that's worth. ( )

The Duchess of Skeffington has lost her husband and what she expects isn't what she gets. The house is miles from anyone she knows and not the house she had hoped for, it was the last insult her elderly husband put on her. The new Duke is certain that she's a gold digger and too caught up with the importance of being a duchess, not realising that her skills and habits have been hard won and have become reflex to save herself from titters and husbandly wrath.

So when she's with her family for Christmas, she decides to break her trip by visiting the house she once loved, he's off somewhere foreign, only he isn't and their second meeting goes as well as their first, which is to say, badly. When a letter arrives for her to tell her that her funds have been stolen, they both go to London to investigate and pretend to be husband and wife over the three nights. This brings them to better realise each other and the attraction builds.

It's interesting, the mystery resolved itself fairly easily but the building relationship was interesting and the characters sparked well off each other. ( )