Lords of Chance #1
Wendy LaCapra
Historical Romance
Published in April 9, 2018 (ARC review)
H/h - Giles Everhart Langley, The Marquess of Bromton/Lady Katherine Stanley
Setting: Regency.
Read in April, 2018
My rating:
[spoiler alert]
It’s been a
while since I pretty much gulped down in about 2 days. Let me tell you
that it’s a rare occurrence for me nowadays. But Wendy LaCapra’s newest
historical romance, book 1 of Lords of Chance series, Scandal in Spades,
managed to do just that. I was hooked from the first page till the
last. I enjoyed almost every bit of it—the storyline, the characters,
the humorous moments and the banters between the H and the h. Lord help
me, but I wanted more when it ended. MORE!
Lords of Chance is
Wendy’s 3rd series after the Furies (now complete) and Mythic Dukes
(ongoing). I’ve been a fan of hers ever since I read the Furies series.
To me, she was a rising star in the arena of Historical Romance. Her
absence of a year and a half due to personal reason was greatly felt and
I personally kept checking for a new release announcement. So I was
ecstatic last year to learn that she’s back to writing—with not one but
two series!
Lords of Chance is a Regency set series with 3 peers
of the realm, 3 Lords who are old friends, as the center of the
storyline. They go by sobriquet taken from the cards—Spades, Clubs and
Diamonds. The latest, a new addition to that small group came in the
form of Lord Markham; Hearts to complete the circle. He’s also the
youngest in the group, often jokingly called as the ‘pup’. But unknowing
to him, he was being groomed by our Spades for an ultimate purpose. No,
nothing nefarious but that didn’t mean it was any less important to
Spades’s own existence. In fact, his life has been upside down for a
while now and only Markham could solve his problem. At least, that’s
what he thought.
Book 1 is the story of Marquess of Bromton,
Giles Langley, who is the aforementioned Spades.
Giles, who is known as Bromton in his circle, or simply ‘Brom’ to his
closest of buddies like Lord Farring (Clubs) and Lord Rayne (Diamonds),
has been taught and trained to be the Marquess since his tender years.
His a$$hole of a father had no other purpose in life, and he wanted his
heir to be a mini me of himself. There should be nothing important than
holding up your own ancestry and keep the Langley line going. And when I
say keeping it going, I mean by any means possible.
Giles’s
childhood was hardly a fairytale for all that he was born in a family
of high status and rich beyond anyone’s measure. In fact, he has been
miserable as long as he can remember. His father never showed one ounce
of affection, and his mother simply abandoned him to the man. She
stopped showing any affection after the order came, when the Marquess
emphasized that Giles needed a strong hand to become the future
Marquess, and not some wuss who hid behind his mother’s skirt. A young
Giles didn’t know why his mother abandoned him to that a$$, so no, he
had no love for his father. In fact, he was confused about a lot of what
happened to him in his childhood. He isn’t anymore...
Giles
didn’t have a good relationship with his mother either as you can only
imagine. One thing the late Marquess was successful in was to beat Giles
almost into an image of himself (yes, beating was involved as a part of
the so-called training). But he wasn’t entirely successful because,
though he’d built a stony outer shell around himself, Giles still felt
where it matters. And he loved his mother even if he hated her for
abandoning him to the nightmare of his young life. Yet, despite
everything, one thing Giles can’t help being is Lord Bromton. It was in
the very essence of his being. This was what he’d lived for and aspired
to be every day of his life until the day his mother announced she’s
getting married to some artist of no consequence. As if the moment she
was free of the late Marquess, she needed to escape her existence as the
Marchioness. She wanted out and she didn’t care whether Giles approved
of it or not.
Giles hated it. Hated what his mother did. But more
than anything, he hated how distant and formal his mother always
sounded, never calling him anything but Bromton. No ‘Giles’ for her, let
alone any pet names. He hated the feeling of being abandoned once
again, even now when he’s old enough in his early 30s and more than
capable of handling a big legacy as the Langley legacy. But what he
hated his mother the most was for the fact that she hit him back for his
cold denouncement of her remarriage with the word ‘bastard’, confirming
once and for all that he has not one ounce of Langley blood in him.
Like hell, the irony! The late Marquess wanted an heir and she had to
conceive by any means possible.
Since then Giles’s life has been
awry. No, from the outside no one can tell. Giles is always controlled,
quite... calm. He’s been going to his little group, enjoying with his
best buddies, having a drink or two and playing cards. But inside he was
being ravaged by the thought of it all. For all the training, and all
the crap he’d taken from the old Marquess, he wasn’t even his son! He
didn’t have any legitimate claim on any of this, even if he was totally
legal since the Marquess accepted him as his own. How can he live
peacefully knowing his very existence was a lie? For all the training of
becoming a cold a$$hole, Giles wasn’t immune to the hurt and misery it
brought him. Now it explains why that’s the case. He had no Langley
blood in him after all.
After much deliberation, his own true
nature won over when Giles finally decided it’d be the best thing to
return the Langley legacy the peeps who have the blood flowing in them,
even if they were distant relatives. Because blood matters to a Langley.
Giles has been searching, and was finally able to find a distant line
of the Langleys in the form of the current Lord Markham, Percy Stanley.
Giles did what he had to do, befriend Markham and invite him in his
inner circle with Lord Farring and Lord Rayne. He had been subtly
grooming and training him to become a person who can shoulder the
responsibilities that would be bestowed on him soon. Now all that was
left for him was to find a way to hand it over. Without Markham knowing
the real reason behind it of course.
A
youngster in his early 20s, Markham was just bemused that such high-born
Lords were so interested in him. He, for all the town polish he’s been
trying to drench himself into, was still a boy who was raised in a
country estate and not particularly rich. Percy was orphaned young but
he had 2 sisters. The eldest Katherine, and the youngest Julia, who is
yet to make her debut. Percy loved both his sisters, even though his
love for Katherine made him worry for her happiness. Katherine had a bad
start in her early years. She was engaged twice, with none coming to
fruition. The first beau died, the second abandoned her for his
mistress. Then the only Beau that mattered then, the Brummell, denounced
her so badly at a public event that any of Katherine’s existing changes
of marriage were destroyed. She now takes care of their country estate
in Percy’s absence, planning her life away to spinsterhood. Percy knew
that this is not the life Katherine wanted for herself and he wanted to
see her happy.
So when in a pre-planned (by Giles) card game,
Giles bets his entire legacy and deliberately loses to Percy, a bit of a
dilemma arises. For one, no one could believe Giles did that because no
one really knew the reasons behind it. Percy, amongst them all, was
more than flabbergasted and couldn’t even take this seriously because he
thought it was all a joke. I mean, why would a man do that? At a point
of negotiation, when Giles seemed nonchalant about the whole matter,
Percy was desperate not to have to take up on such a humongous
responsibility—I could tell that he was overwhelmed by it all—and a
solution comes to him. He throws back his own challenge at Giles; a
chance to win Katherine’s hand. No, not by another stack of card game
but by meeting her in person, then courting her. If that didn’t work,
Percy would do whatever Giles asked him to do.
And for Giles, it
wasn’t remotely a solution—why would he wanna bother with a spinster in
the making ffs?—until it became THE SOLUTION to all his problems. If all
goes as planned he won’t even have to lose anything! All he has to do
is to woo Katherine Stanley, marry her and have the most anticipated
legit Langley heir. An heir who’d finally have the Langley blood in
him... from his mother! What if she’s a spinster? As the saying goes, by
any means possible...
I know this kinda make Giles look like a
madman, an a$$hole exactly like the old Marquess but trust me, he
wasn’t. Yes, his thought process was still regulated as he was trained
from childhood. He wanted to make certain of a legit heir, and he was
going to have one whatever it took. I won’t say his thought process
wasn’t that of an a$$hole but it was what it was. He was sure he’d be
able to woo Katherine without much effort. After all what did it take to
woo a spinster who should take this as a blessing? He vaguely knew of
her past ‘scandals’ and why she retired to the country and never
returned to London for years. But, right now, nothing mattered. His own
life was a big scandal, or would be one if anyone got a whiff of his
mother’s indiscretion. Besides Giles was goodlooking with dark hair and
bright blue-grey eyes and totally assured of his own influence. He was
certain no one will dare say a cross word to Katherine about her past
after she’s the Marchioness.
Here I ought to mention here that
Giles was engaged to Rayne’s younger sister, Lady Claudia. It was a
match made in the cradle or some such thing, meaning done by their
parents when they were young. Giles was quite used to with the idea and
liked Claudia much. However, after the revelation of his non-Langley
status, he broke off with her. It has caused a rift between Rayne and
him, though Claudia wasn’t remotely sad about the whole matter. Though
he and Rayne still talk and keep each-other’s company, an invisible
strain is always there. Rayne’s property lies next to Giles’s and
they’ve been buddies for a long time. He’s older than Rayne and thought
of him as a younger brother. But now Giles knew that this strain may not
be one that can be amended, especially if Rayne knew that Giles has
gone off to marry someone else. Rayne took it as a dishonor to Claudia,
even if she gave Giles her blessing to marry somewhere else already.
Ever
since her parents died, Katherine had taken care of her two younger
siblings. It’d seem like she has also been taking care of the modest
Stanley estate on her own since her disaster of a betrothal. Um, make
that two betrothals. But her first betrothal was with the man she
thought was the life of her life; Septimus Chandler, the village vicar’s
son, born to do many great things, who was already following his
father’s footsteps quite diligently when he died. He was all Katherine
thought was kind and pure. In fact, she found Septimus so pure, she’d
always ignored the fact that maybe it was her who was more interested in
the whole thing than him. That Septimus had a way of pushing her away
and seemed to enjoy that too. It was something Katherine would come to
realize later after Giles began courting her seriously.
But for
now, she was still in that contented illusion that their love was mutual
and had illness not taken Septimus, they’d have been happily married
and continued on with his life’s work. Hell, Katherine was even training
herself to be the biddable wife because that was one of Septimus’s
major complaints about her. For now, Katherine thought, her one chance
at love has passed. But she still would’ve been happy to be married, be a
wife and mother, run an estate like her father’s estate. Unfortunately,
after 2 broken betrothals, one that ended in a deep heartbreak, and
then her denouncement by Beau Brummell, which was followed by eager
peeps trying to gain access to their home by any means to have a look at
Markham’s scandalous sister like she was some kinda oddity, Katherine
has had enough of that type of ‘excitement’. She was happy to be a
spinster, planning away Julia’s coming debut. She tried her best not to
think of the future. For now at least.
So when she found out
Percy had invited a peer of the realm to their home, nope, Katherine
wasn’t happy. She didn’t need that kinda problem in her house once
again. Julia didn’t need another scandal which may botch her chances.
But when she beheld the extremely handsome, brooding Lord Bromton, her
belly fluttered and her legs quivered and Katherine knew it wasn’t good
news. She was going down that path again, the path that Septimus didn’t
like. The path to attraction and lust. But Katherine couldn’t help it,
couldn’t help the physical pull to a person she was attracted to. In
fact, she believed very much in physical love and longed to experience
with a person she loved. Unfortunately, Septimus wasn’t amused about it.
Their one brief foray into that ended in disaster. I, personally
thought, Septimus was an a$$ and he treated Katherine quite poorly in
the name of the so-called righteous. But a young Katherine didn’t know
any different; she didn’t until Giles made it possible for her to
realize that she’d have been miserable with Septimus in the long run.
Their
counting was the stuff of dreams, at least for me. Their chemistry, the
banter, sometimes funny oftimes full of hot innuendoes without sounding
crass, was SO GOOD to read. It was one of those things I long to read
in every book but don’t often experience. You just know from the moment
they were introduced and spend time together in the folly built by
Katherine’s mother, that these two belong together, no question asked.
Giles wasn’t sure what to expect but was pleasantly surprised to find
Katherine was very pretty, intelligent and undoubtedly accomplished. He
was quite smitten on spot, though he hid it well until later when he
couldn’t anymore.
I would’ve loved seeing them having a smooth
sailing but that wasn’t gonna happen, no thanks to Rayne the a$$hole. He
and Farring went to check up on Giles later in the story. Rayne and
Julia shares something and I can’t wait to see how that progresses in
their story. BUT, he wasn’t over the fact that Giles didn’t marry
Claudia and he had to ruin it for him. SMH. I was SO mad at this a$$
that I can’t even explain. *SMH*
There were quite a few heart-wrenching moments in Scandal in Spades.
One, for me, was Giles’s yearning for his mother’s love. Yes he loved
Katherine with the same type of intensity, even if it was a different
type of affection. But his yearning to make amends with his mother was a
palpable thing throughout the story and I almost hated the woman for
being so cold to her only offspring... until later that is, when things
started unraveling. And when Giles and Katherine were going through
their ‘big mis’ my heart broke more for Giles cause he thought he was
being abandoned by another person he loved. He blamed himself for,
somehow, again mucking up another life. Now that person also hates him
as much as his mother did. So for me, the last scene with his mother
needed to happen. And I was so glad that finally they had the talk that
should’ve happened a long time ago.
Now, this story is mostly
perfect but there were a few things that bugged me. The first and
foremost was Giles deciding not to learn his real father’s identity. I
thought it should’ve been revealed. I was really curious to learn what
had happened and who was that man. The second thing was the love scene,
the only one. After reading the type of chemistry they shared, I was
rather disappointed in that area because it happened when Giles and
Katherine were cross with each-other. There was nothing after they made
up and the story kinda ended with a rush. I SO WISHED there was at least
another chapter to tidy things up before the conclusion. :(
But all in all, Scandal in Spades
is a marvelous beginning to what I already think would be a smashing
series. I totally LOVE the characters and can’t wait to find out what
happens next for who, also hoping that we catch a glimpse of Katherine
and Giles in the process. 4.5 stars and recommended for any Historical
Romance lover!
ARC received in exchange of an honest review, thanks to Entangled Scandalous (and Holly).
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