Livia Lacey is one of three spinsters who shared a house together in Cavendish Square. The house was bequeathed to her by her relative, Sophia Lacey. She lived their with her friends Nell and Aurelia. When Nell got married, she left Livia and Aurelia to live together while she went off to the wilds of Scotland to honeymoon with her new husband and children.
Livia meets Prince Alexander Prokov at a party when he tips her dancing partner into the fountain, and claims the man's dance in his place. Livia is somewhat swept off her feet by the charming and forceful Prince, and his zest for life disarms her. Even though he is given to overextravagant gestures towards her, she finds him more compelling than anything else.
As for Alex, he is struck by Livia the moment he sees her. But he has something on his mind in addition to romance. For Alex is a spy, in England on behalf of Russia, with whom England is at war, and he needs a wife who is well-connected at court so that he can keep the Tsar apprised of what is going on there. But as he pulls out all the stops in his pursuit of a woman who he finds very personally appealing as well as necessary, he finds himself baffled when she finds his gifts much too extravangant and turns them down.
Alex is flabbergasted at the thought of a woman who *isn't* flattered to be given massive amounts of flowers, a beautiful, spirited horse, or jewelry. But he wants her, and he'll do anything to get her. But when he finally asks her to marry him, she is conflicted, but agrees.
After they are married, however, she quickly finds that his confident and autocratic ways become more overbearing than loving. He won't allow her to meet his Russian friends, and he snaps at her when she comes in without knocking. Also, they have moved into her house, but she finds out that it was really never hers. Her relative that she inherited it from was only given the house in her own lifetime, and she never had the right to pass it on to Livia. When she finds out that Alex kept this a secret from her because he didn't want her to feel obligated towards him, she ends up loving him more. But Alex's other secret could imperil more than their marriage, it could imperil both their lives!
But when the Russian secret police kidnap Alex to take him back to Russia, it will be up to Livia to get him back and make sure she wants to stay married to him for the rest of their lives.
I had a hard time liking Alex at first, as the way he so coldly plans out his method for wooing her made me dislike him a lot. He had already selected her ahead of time, and he planned and mounted his campaign like that of a military campaign. The fact that he didn't even care about Livia's feelings annoyed me and made me think of him as a user. I had a hard time giving up that image of him, and after the marriage, even when it's clear he loves her, he's still manipulating her. As a result, I never felt he deserved the heroine. I felt she deserved better, even if they loved each other.
The book was otherwise okay. The writing was clear and easy to read, and the characters were memorable, but I could never get behind the romance with Alex because of the whole "lying to her, over and over" thing. Normally, I love Jane Feather's romances, but this one just didn't appeal to me at all.
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