It Takes Two to Tumble

It Takes Two to Tumble (2017) Cat Sebastian (Seducing the Sedgwicks)

Set in England in 1817

“You have no right—”

“No, I don’t. I don’t care, though. I’m not leaving your children alone with a virtual stranger who doesn’t seem kindly disposed to them.”

Phillip sucked in a breath. “I have no intention of harming my children.”

“Oh, I’m certain you don’t. You’d likely call it discipline. But I’m not interested in semantics. I won’t leave your children alone with someone who seems determined to make enemies of them. They’ve had precious few allies these past few years.”

Alice said from the sofa where she was propped up on a flotilla of cushions. Every week there seemed to be less Alice and more cushion, and Ben briefly wondered how long until there wasn’t any Alice at all.

Neat categories of valid relationships that everyone understood, phrases of belonging that could be etched concisely onto tombstones: beloved son, devoted wife. There were even rules for how to grieve people in each category, how many months to wear a black armband and whether one could dance. Captain Dacre didn’t have any of that.

Ernestine’s penmanship, however, refused to stay still. The letters jumped around the page and twirled out of his brain before he could corral them into anything resembling words. By the time he gave up, he had worn the paper soft around the edges.

Until then it hadn’t occurred to Phillip that his own difficulty with reading might be something that ran in the blood.

Every day he visited the poor and the housebound, trying to find small ways to improve their lot or at least their outlook. That was why he had gone into the church.

Publisher: Avon Impulse

Rating: 9/10

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