Rating: 9/10
Can she win his trust once again? Can he resist her charms one more time? Only time, and love, will tell!
As detailed previously, this is the third in the Hurst Amulet series.
Robert Hurst is the latest sibling to hunt down the onyx boxes that the Hurst’s believe contain a map of some sort. Robert works for the Home Office, which means that he’s basically a spy.The book opens with Robert telling a banker that he won’t be getting any other London buyers to his auction (he sent all the invitees the same letter). A Mrs MacJames, is the banker’s assistant – the lovely, tricky Moira MacAllister (Hurst) in disguise, looking amongst the collection for another of the boxes. Moira escapes on horseback when Robert is talking to the banker. Yes, they not only have a past but they’re married.
At this point in the series, the Hurst’s have one of the three onyx boxes. A very good fake was sent on the way to Egypt to free Michael at the end of Scandal in Scotland, and Robert has stolen a second from Moira’s belongings a short while before the beginning of the book.
We see George Aniston, who was blackmailing Marcail in Scandal in Scotland for the first time. And as far as villains go, he’s villainous. Aniston stops just shy of punishing her for not bringing the box from the auction collection – even though he knew that it wasn’t there. Sir Lachlan Ross, bought the third onyx box for his private collection. Aniston sends Moira off to fetch it.
Robert catches up to Moira (now Mrs Randolph), and discusses why she tricked him into marriage – and it was a trick, involving a bribed priest, stolen marriage licenses and banns read on the sly. He reaches the (correct) conclusion that she was pregnant. Rowena is their daughter, and Aniston has her. In an obvious move, to get the last box from Ross, they pose as a happily married couple – Ross is a cheat and known for seducing married women.
I liked that Robert understood Moira not telling him about their daughter, he’s a little mad but he’s reasonable over her decision which is refreshing. They are a pair who have to work past mistrust and lies but this reads, realistically. I felt there was less of a focus on the relationship of the pair in some ways because they come back together by using their devious skills to steal the third box.
Moira and Robert are well matched, Robert is probably the only man who could watch wits with Moira, and she lets him be something more.
Interesting to read is the letters to, from and about the Hurst siblings – Michael and his assistant Jane Smyth-Haughton get free from the Egyptian sulfi. It will be interesting to see Michael look beyond the surface of the woman who annoys him so. At this point the next book from Karen Hawkins is titled The Taming of a Scottish Princess, and it is released next May.
“–so I must ask that you refrain from ever wondering anything aloud in my house again” Alexander MacLean in a letter to Robert Hurst.
Currently Listening: Cardiology – Good Charlotte
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