When the handsome,
Honorable Nigel Cavendish meets with the other two last men standing to
discuss the current bet of who will be last to marry, he is the one
most firm in his announcement that what happened to their friend Lord
Warton will not happen to him. But when he jumps over the fence into
the yard of Lady Felicity Mellville while fleeing the husband of his
latest paramour, he is immediately taken with the intelligent beauty
and her deep brown eyes. Wishes, fate, and a little manipulation from
his twin sister Maddy, brings them together at every turn and the
passion and desire grows spinning Nigel's ordered life out of control.
When he enters her balcony again to steal a family painting she won
from him in a card game, Felicity meets him with gun in hand. No matter
how he fights his desire, he can't help but kiss Felicity senseless. So
senseless that she drops the gun she is holding to ward off the
intruder, it goes off and loudly shatters a vase, and Nigel jumps over
the balcony and into the thorn bushes below. It is in that position he
meets Felicity's father the Earl of Dunbury. The last thing Felicity
wants is a forced marriage. She would like to believe it is her wish
upon a star or fate that brings them together with eventual love. But
when Felicity asks her father if they could just overlook the incident,
he replies "A man falling from a woman's balcony after a shot is heard
is the sort of thing gossips dream about. Add a midget and a monkey and
it would be the stuff legends are made of!" So they are married in
haste with Nigel afraid to even mention the words marriage and wife. He
announces after the ceremony that his life is going to be as it always
has been, minus the other women. Felicity once again obtains the help
of Nigel's twin sister Maddy and they scheme a bit to help Nigel wonder
what his beautiful wife is doing while he is living his separate life.
When Nigel becomes bored at his club and former interests he realizes
he misses Felicity's company, but when he follows her to his sister's
home he finds out that a bit of manipulation from Felicity and Maddy,
not what he feels was fate, intervened to make him a married man. He
and Maddy argue with Felicity announcing she will let him have his wish
and his freedom. When his father passes on and Nigel moves into the
title of Viscount, more responsibilites and circumstances are added to
his life and it is then that he comes to realize that love and fate,
not manipulation, is what brought he and Felicity together, and that he
misses Felicity and wants her back. It may take another trip over the
balcony and a shot to go off for things to be settled. But one thing
for sure is that the second book in "The Last Man Series" is a
delightful, whimsical, fast paced story with entertaining dialgoue
between the characters, that is witty, sexy and pure historical romance
fun!
Publisher: Avon
(February 2007)
Reviewed
by Beverly,
Beverly Romance Books
