A Case for Christmas

A Case for Christmas (2021) J.A. Rock & Lisa Henry (The Lords of Bucknall Club, #2)

In 1783, the Marriage Act Amendment was introduced in England to allow marriages between same-sex couples. This was done to strengthen the law of primogeniture and to encourage childless unions in younger sons and daughters of the peerage, as an excess of lesser heirs might prove burdensome to a thinly spread inheritance.

“What do you need from me?”

Gale hesitated. “I… do not know how to talk to children. I find them strange and horrifying. If we can locate Howe’s house, and if we discover the girl there… could you speak to her in a way she will not find frightening?”

“I had heard that your sister was deceased. I am so very sorry to have touched upon a painful subject.”

“It is quite all right. She is deceased. To refuse to speak of it does not change the fact.”

“I think that I am rather an atheist,” he said, “and my unwillingness to admit it comes from the fact that I wish I was not.”

“It would be easier, would it not, to believe in justice delivered and wrongs righted beyond this world?”

He swallowed hard on a rush of gratitude. She had understood from his earliest years that his aversion to being touched was not obstinacy or temper, but rather as much a part of him as his long legs or brown eyes. And she had always asked permission. “Not right now,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”

Characters: Lord Christmas Gale, Howe, Lady Gale, Richard Gale, Edward Gale, Eugenie Gale, Clarissa Gale, Anne-Marie Gale, William Hartwell, Joseph Warrington, Benjamin Chant, Reid, Mrs. Faulks, George Darling, Lord Balfour, Captain de Cock, Visser, Fernside, Philip Winthrop Viscount Soulden, Loftus Rivingdon, Morgan Notley

Cover Art by Mitxeran

Rating: 8.5/10

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