The fourth and final book of the series, and the formula is becoming wearisome: a wildly handsome aristocratic hero, a spiky heroine with a complicated history who dislikes him on sight because reasons, the discovery that that they have the hots for each other, developing slowly into love, but there are some kind of obstacles, necessitating a lot of toing and froing and general angst. There are minor variations but that’s the gist of it. Which is OK but I like a bit more variation in my characters, to be honest. Picky? Yes, absolutely.

Here’s the premise: Claudia Martin is the headmistress of her own school in Bath, proud of her achievements and not in need of a man to help her through life, thank you very much. She needs to take two of her graduating pupils to London to take up employment there, and her friend has sent an escort: the very handsome and charming Marquess of Attingsborough. Claudia doesn’t need an escort but she can’t easily refuse without giving offence, so off they go, and she finds that the marquess is perfectly gentlemanlike, but has an annoying ability to summon the best service merely by raising a haughty eyebrow.
Joseph isn’t much taken with the prim schoolmistress either, but he has a reason to take an interest in her and her school, which has nothing to do with her personally. She’s not very appealing to him, and besides, he’s on the brink of a pragmatic alliance with the very beautiful and eligible Portia Hunt. He’s not mad keen on Portia, who’s a bit of a cold fish, but she’ll warm up a bit once they’re married – won’t she?

The story bumps along in typical Balogh style, that is to say, the principals are thrown together by circumstance over and over again without (apparently) much agency on their part. The drift into love is the usual slow affair, kept from any resolution by Claudia’s conviction that she’s just a schoolmistress and therefore deeply unworthy of a man who’s going to be a duke one day, plus she just hates dukes. All the aristocracy, in fact, but particularly dukes. For his part, Joseph is determined to do the right thing by his heritage and marry the eminently suitable Portia, even though he’s not enamoured by her.

Into this stupidity comes the reason for Claudia’s dislike of dukes, the Scottish Duke of McLeith, who promised to marry her, deflowered her and then, when he unexpectedly went off to become a duke, forgot all about her and left her languishing. No wonder she hated him, and applied her disdain to the whole of dukedom. Anyone would.

Beneath this adult emotional muddle is a hefty dose of sickly sweet sentimentalism, in the shape of a child and a dog. In lesser hands this would be positively indigestible, but Balogh is talented enough to pull it off – just! This leads to the big crisis which might finally get him free of his commitment to the unpleasant Portia – or will it? The question is spun out to the nth degree of course, and meanwhile Joseph and Claudia are getting into bed together, because heaven forfend that a Balogh heroine should ever be sensible.

This is the final part of the series, but in some ways it’s also part of the preceding Bedwyns series, too, because the characters from that turn up all over the place here, as well as the characters from earlier books in this series. Frankly, it made for way, WAY too many characters, especially as they all have Christian names as well as titles. I gave up several books ago trying to keep track of them all, and just let it all wash over me.

I probably sound a bit negative, but Balogh has that effect on me. Her Regency appears superficially to be authentic, but there’s too much modernism in it, too much angst and sentimentalism, and I really, really wish her heroines wouldn’t get their kit off quite so readily, at least until they have a promise from the hero. But really, sleeping with a man who’s promised to someone else or (worse) that she herself has decided not to marry is insanity in an era when having a child out of wedlock was a very quick way to end up in the workhouse, an asylum or on the streets.

On the other hand, the author is still one of the best writers out there, so even as I grumble through each book, I read it avidly, neglecting everything else to get to the final chapter. So five stars it is.

A very different hero in this book, Peter being far more of a beta than anything else. He’s kind to everyone, especially ladies, flirting with the young ones and being chatty and attentive to the older females, but is there anything more to him than frivolity? I liked him very much. Susanna is more difficult to like, frankly. And I’m getting heartily sick of slow, angsty romances, single women hopping into bed with a bloke without a care in the world, complicated backstories and couples who just won’t admit they’re in love. Plus coincidences everywhere, and the whole ‘last time we’ll ever meet’ thing repeated fourteen times. But it’s Mary Balogh, so there’s that.

Here’s the premise: Susanna Osbourne is another of the teachers at Miss Martin’s school for girls in Bath. She was taken in as a charity girl at the age of twelve, and then stayed on as a teacher, which she’s brilliant at, natch. Oh yes, and she’s stunningly beautiful, as all Balogh’s characters seem to be. On a summer holiday visiting a friend, she meets Peter, Viscount Whitleaf, and recognises him from her pre-school childhood, but in a negative way. He lived on a neighbouring estate, the precious only son, too good to mingle with the daughter of Lord Markham’s secretary.

She instantly despises him, but he sets himself to win her over, as he does with all females, but recognising her very different character, he doesn’t flirt with her, treating her as an equal and friend. Needless to say, she responds to his charm, realising that he’s not quite the shallow rattle she’d thought him. By the end of their two weeks, they end up having sex. Why? Because this is a Balogh book. In the previous two books, the sex made some sense but in this one, it just doesn’t.

And then, they separate, never to meet again. Until they do. Repeat ad nauseam. Well, perhaps that’s not quite fair, because every time they do meet, their interactions are fascinating. Because Balogh. And gradually, the whole of Susanna’s tragic history is revealed, inch by inch. I’m going to be honest here and say that some elements of the plot made no sense to me, leaving all sorts of unanswered questions dangling. For instance: we never find out why Lady Markham thought Susanna would be such a burden (and it was what drove her to run away, after all); we don’t know how her uncle died; I’m not at all clear why Susanna had such an aversion to Peter’s mother, since she doesn’t know until almost the end of the book what she actually did; and why didn’t Susanna know about her grandparents?

But (and it’s a big but) it doesn’t really matter, because the romance is the heart of the book and that works fine. I’d have liked it if they’d accepted that they were more than friends a bit earlier. That whole business of ‘I love him/her but I can’t marry him/her because he/she doesn’t love me’ thing went on way, way too long. But finally Peter gets it, and decides that he’s going to be decisive, deal with his mother, take control of his estate and pursue Susanna seriously. A bit late, but better late than never. And then there’s the whole big wedding thing that Balogh absolutely loves, even though it really wasn’t a thing in the Regency. But never mind.

This all sounds very critical, and maybe I was just in the wrong mood for this or maybe it suffered from being the third in the series and perhaps the weakest and maybe I just misunderstood bits of it. But despite all my grumbles, I did enjoy it and tore through it in no time and Peter was thoroughly endearing, so I’m only going to knock it down to four stars. And now on to the final book of the series and the headmistress, Claudia Martin. I’m very curious to see how Balogh gets her into bed with the hero.