Lady Nora's Education by Meta Mathews

Lady Nora's Education (novella)
Riotous Revelers #3

Meta Mathews
Historical Romance/Erotica
Published in 2013

H/h - Frederic Greene/Lady Nora Anderson
Setting: London, 1816.

Read in Oct, 2013.

My rating:

                                            [spolier alert] 

Lady Nora's Education is book 3 in Riotous Revelers series by Meta Mathews. When I read the other two books, 1, Lady Chamberly's Choices and 2, Bad Lady Baronton, this wasn’t yet a series per say. But I knew they were connected through the characters.

Riotous Revelers, indeed, used to be a mythical group that was created by some of these characters in these books while they were fighting against France. I don’t know exactly how many men there were but Chamberly and Garett or Baronton were a part of it. There was also Jerome aka Windsford, who was seen in book 1 but was not present in book 2 due to some estate matters. In this book we meet another member of that group; Viscount Parry.

Now, Frederic or Freddy, our H of the story, is of course one of the members. He’s a 3rd son of an Earl, but he’s rich on his own. Freddy had a tough time when he was caught by the enemies and tortured. His scars run deeper than his wounded leg and constant limp. It seems like Freddy has gone impotent from that torture. No, physically he’s alright (apart from that wounded leg) but he can’t get himself up. We first met Freddy in book 2, a gentleman who likes to keep to himself. When Garett was pursuing his h, Madelina or Maddy, Freddy meets Maddy’s younger, the most beautiful of the 5 sisters, Nora. There were some plot twists and they had to get betrothed fast and then broke off too.

Roxanne, Garett’s beautiful (now ex-)mistress was also introduced in book 2. She’s the most sought after courtesan of London but somehow Garett was able to snatch her away from the numerous other men who were vying for her favors. There was an explicit sex scene with her and Garett that annoyed the hell outta me, especially seeing how fast he jumped to replace her with Maddy, when, due to another plot twist, he wasn’t aware of her real identity and considered making her his mistress. I don’t hate Roxanne, she’s not your proverbial evil mistress. And she’s given some mysterious past and behaviors to go with it. However, I don’t care to read such stuff with the H... As Garett decides to marry Maddy, he gives Roxanne up to Freddy who wanted to become her protector.

Freddy has been seeing Roxanne ever since but to no avail. He can pleasure her with his mouth but can’t have sex. But Roxanne seems very understanding and it’s apparent that they share a strong friendship. At this point of the story, Nora returns to London, very excited to see Freddy again, who is her dearest friend... or maybe something more than that as it was implied that she already has formed a tendre for him. For Freddy, of course he cares for Nora and wanted to marry her too, but because of the fact that he can’t be a husband in truth to her, he broke off giving some excuse. Freddy just can’t see her having any future with him. But when they’re thrown together and discovered, then betrothed fast, Freddy has no other option but to come clean to Nora.

Though she’s a virgin, Nora is knowledgeable about sex, thanks to Maddy who has no qualms about discussing her relationship with Garett. Because of that, Nora somewhat understood Freddy’s problem. She also heard about Roxanne from gossips, so she decides to pay a visit to her. What better way to try to ‘cure’ your betrothed other than asking for help from his mistress, right? *eyeroll* There was another story I read by this author where the h does the same because she wanted to attract her erstwhile husband, the H’s attention, though the husband in question wasn’t impotent by any means. I thought this is going to be something like that. At first, I was even glad that Nora would go to such lengths to help Freddy... but that scene between her, Freddy (who pays a visit in the middle of their discussion) and Roxanne... ugh. It plain turned me off. I didn’t like it. Just couldn’t. And that one long scene killed the fun for me because it seemed entirely unnecessary to me.

The rest, I skimmed through. There are some troubles at the end, with a few people from Freddy’s past who kidnap Nora because they still think the men of Riotous Revelers have accumulated a lot of riches and they can blackmail Freddy’s portion out of him this way. On the process of rescuing Nora, Freddy magically gets back his manhood in some way that I’m yet to comprehend. But what made me want to roll my eyes again was the fact of them wanting to have sex right after they were rescued. I would’ve thought (from the description of the old root cellar) that Freddy and Nora should’ve been tired and dirty from their ordeal.

Apparently I was wrong.

Last but not the least, Roxanne is being dumped on Parry this time. I’m sure he’s not impotent like Freddy and will make the best of this opportunity. I don’t know how many guys the poor girl will have to sleep with before she has her own HEA. For me, it’s becoming a little awkward at this point.

I’m still interested to learn about the other RR men, though I probably won’t be picking those up as eagerly as I did this one. I’m disappointed in this installment because I was hoping for much more from Freddy’s book. 3 stars.