I am still stunned from reading Never a Gentleman. It is not like any other romance I’ve read in a very long time. It is stripped of all niceties and is just full of raw emotion.

Diccan Hilliard is part of Drake’s Rakes, working undercover to protect the Crown against its enemies. It’s a dangerous game that puts everyone he loves in the path of danger so he does his best to stay unattached. That is until he wakes up naked in bed with Grace Fairchild. Grace is a soldier’s daughter used to marching to the drum. After being caught in a scandalous position with the handsome Diccan her life is thrown upside down.

Now, forced to marry Diccan must keep Grace safe and the best way is to keep his secrets and to keep Grace far from his heart. Even if that means breaking her heart. Diccan has always liked Grace as a person but he never imagined himself married to her. But being forced to spend time with her he starts to realize just how perfect she is for him.

Grace is not your normal heroine. She is considered plain, she walks with a limp, she is too tall by half and was raised on the march with her father who was a solider. I love that she is strong, stronger then most woman but at times I wanted to slap her upside the head. I hate that she hid who she was from everyone but I understand why she did. I just wished she stood up for herself more.

I really didn’t want to like Diccan but somehow he just kept redeeming himself. But then he goes against all romance hero protocol and takes a mistress. Not to mention that poor Grace is a witness to it in a very gut-wrenching scene. Diccan is with his mistress and Grace overhears what he says:

“What about your wife?”

“The cripple?”

Grace blinked, sure she’d heard wrong. Her heart had surely gone silent as she waited. But he sounded completely indifferent. “She has nothing to object to,” he was saying, his focus on Minette’s breast. “I married her. I’ll be damned if I have to fuck her.”

We met Grace and Diccan in Eileen Dreyer’s Barely a Lady. Immediately I was rooting for Grace to find her HEA but I never expected it to be Diccan. But despite everything, you can see that Diccan does care for Grace and for all his wrong doing and idiotic thoughts he just wanted her to be safe. In the end they we’re perfect for each other, each helping other to show there true selves.

“You’ve freed me, my Grace. You’ve liberated me from the prison of perfection.”

“I was just thinking that today we’ve changed those uniforms for new one. But I was wrong. We weren’t in uniforms at all; we were in disguise.”

Reviewed by: Jamie