Wager for a Wife

Wager for a Wife
By Karen Tuft

Lady Louisa Hargreaves' first London season is going well--she has even attracted the attention of the heir to a dukedom, the Earl fo Kerridge. He even proposes, and the details of the marriage agreement just need to be finalized before they can announce their engagement. Before that happens, though, William Barlow, Jr., the new Viscount Farleigh arrives and changes everything. It seems years ago, his father and Louisa's grandfather made a bed, which his father won--and the winnings were the hand of the daughter of the Marquess of Ashworth in marriage to the Viscount Farleigh. Since the vowel didn't state which Marquess of Ashworth or which Viscount Farleigh, William can claim the hand of the current marquess's daughter--meaning Louisa now has to choose whether to uphold her family's honor and pay the debt or to sacrifice the family honor by refusing to wed the viscount.
While Louisa agrees to the marriage, she wants to get to know the character of her betrothed--but he speaks little and shows no emotion, and she fears what marriage to such a man will bring. William needs her to marry him in order to save his estate and provide a home and living for the servants there, who are more like family to him than his father ever was, and he wants to marry her, because he fell for her immediately, but he can't break down the walls he's built up in his life, walls built as a result of an abusive father who drilled in him that he must never show emotions.

I was immediately drawn to honor-bound, reticent Willam and bubbly, vivacious Louisa. William just drew me in with how much he cared about his servants and how he'd been hurt and influenced by his father; I also adored the fact that while he was terrible at expressing himself, he easily appreciated that about Louisa and didn't ever try to stifle her emotions. I also really liked the supporting characters in the book, Louisa's family and William's servant family. The banter between Louisa and her brothers was a lot of fun, and the love that William's servants had for him was really sweet and tender--and a nice break from the traditional servants in Regency novels; I liked that we got to see their personalities. I skimmed through other reviews of this book and the biggest complaint seemed to be that people didn't find the vowel and the mortgages that made it necessary for William to call in payment on the debt to be believable. For me, that wasn't a problem. I guess I don't know enough about Regency estate management and entails to be bothered by that plotline. I certainly have read books where I felt like the author made you suspend disbelief to a point that it wasn't enjoyable, but that wasn't my experience with this book. (I did get tired of the word "vowel," however; according to my Kindle search, its' in there 66 times in 256 pages!)

All in all, I loved the romance and was very drawn in by it and found it to be a very enjoyable read. 4 stars.

I read an ARC via #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.