Simply Perfect by Mary Balogh
rating: 4 of 5 stars
By the time Balogh got to the fourth book in this series devoted to Bath school teachers I was kind of over the whole theme. Thankfully, while the theme of the novel was still very much there, the characters were a departure for the series.
Claudia Martin is what society would deem a spinster - she's old, she's set in her ways and she knows who she is. Thankfully, Joseph - the Marquess of Attingsborough - is no young pup, still wet behind the years. He too is a bit long in the tooth and much to his family's dismay, unwed. At first I thought his reasons were going to be the same old "I don't want to get married because I don't want to be tied down and dammit to hell society for trying to make me find a wife when I'm really not ready even though I should have been married already ten years over." If they were, I might have stopped reading.
Thankfully, he had another reason that marriage wasn't a good idea and thank goodness Lizzie wasn't a mistress b/c that would have been a very bad idea. No, Lizzie is a blind, precocious bastard child and a cute and smart one at that. While Joseph finds himself drawn to Claudia's personality, undoubtedly his real interest lies in what she might be able to do for Lizzie - and thus, the two are thrown together in what should surely be something as innocent and teacher and parent but the pull is too strong, their desire for one another too great.
Of course, there's all the old obstacles that any romance novelist will throw our way - the ton, societal responsibilities, old hurts and old lovers ... but in the end, love conquers all. Of course it did, and I was glad of it.
(Oh, and did I mention that I stayed up until 3:30 a.m. reading this one? Yeah, it was that good.)
