Saturday Review: One Night with the Laird

One Night with the Laird

By Nicola Cornick

Publisher: Harlequin

Release Date: 

October 29, 2013

They meet as strangers at a masquerade ball in Edinburgh and share one night of passion so powerful that neither of them can forget it. Both will be horrified when they discover the identity of their nameless lover.

Lady Mairi MacLeod is a beautiful widow with enormous responsibilities. Her husband, who inherited an impressive fortune from a nabob grandfather, left it all—the four homes, a dozen businesses, assorted bonds and investments, and various philanthropic ventures—in his widow’s control. But even these responsibilities are less weighty than the secret Mairi must protect, one that could plunge her and her aging in-laws into ruinous scandal and leave a mark on the proud MacLeod name. Mairi can hardly believe that the one night she surrenders to the temptation to add color and excitement to her life that the man she chose for her lover turned out to be Jack Rutherford, a rake she despises. “He was arrogant, self-assured, deplorably confident, all too well aware of his charm and the effect it had on every woman he met.”

Jack Rutherford was almost destroyed by the cost of loving and losing after the deaths of mother and sister, deaths for which he holds himself responsible. Only the intervention of his grandmother saved him from the abyss into which guilt, grief, and alcoholism were leading him. Having achieved sobriety and with a self-earned fortune, he makes certain his relationships with women are limited to satisfying sexual encounters from which he walks away with an untouched heart. He berates himself when three months after a single night with the seductive beauty he knows only as Rose, he still thinks of her, still desires her.

Jack is dismayed when his cousin Robert, Marquis of Methven, asks that Robert escort Lady Mairi MacLeod to Methven for the family house party to celebrate the christening of the second son born to Robert and his wife, the former Lady Lucy MacMorlan, in the three years of their marriage. Jack is not fond of family gatherings at best, and he and Lady Mairi have been at odds since she haughtily rejected Jack’s invitation to become his mistress shortly after the two met. Jack is convinced that Mairi is “too rich, too beautiful, and too clever.” But since he is convinced that Mairi will refuse his escort, he consents to Methven’s request that Jack make the offer. He is unprepared to discover that the scornful Mairi is the runaway lover whom he has been unable to forget, and he is furious when Mairi makes clear that the night they shared was an aberration that will not be repeated.

To everyone’s surprise, including his own, Jack comes to the rescue when Mairi’s enemies threaten her safety, to the point of pretending that he is betrothed to her. But once they are thrown into one another’s company, the explosive chemistry between them ensures complication neither is seeking. Jack and Mairi’s only chance for happiness lies in defeating the enemies plotting against Mairi and the defenses that two people scarred by past experiences have mounted to protect themselves.

One Night with the Laird is the second in Cornick’s Scottish Brides series, following The Lady and the Laird (Lucy and Robert’s story). It is a more sensual and more suspenseful story than the first book. Cornick’s deft touch with characterization is evident as both Mairi and Jack emerge as fully dimensional, sympathetic characters whose happiness readers root for. Some readers will be pleased to see that Jack’s armor against love is substantial enough not to be melted by lust, however hot the flames. His awareness that he loves Mairi comes slowly without his understanding the changes until late in the story. Others may think the HEA happens too abruptly.

If anyone offers a prize for the most sensual opening chapter in mainstream romance in 2013, One Night with the Laird deserves to be a leading candidate. And the sizzle (including one scene of the type that seems to have been added to oral sex as a necessary scene for a steamy rating) doesn’t end with the opening. Villains also abound, and the cardinal offender may come as a surprise. This is a solid addition to a strong series. I prefer the first book to the second, but my preference is a matter of personal taste. Readers who like their stories darker and sexier will likely prefer this second offering. While readers familiar with the first book will enjoy a richer context for Jack and Mairi’s story, the second book can be read as a standalone.

Claimed by the Laird, the story of Christina, the third MacMorlan sister, is scheduled for release in August 2014.

I am slowly coming around to careful consideration of the suggestion that readers would find a sensuality rating on romance novels useful. While some of my favorite romance authors write hot, I prefer not to be surprised by the sensuality level. What do you think?

Another Review for a July 30 Release: The Lady and the Laird

The Lady and the Laird

By Nicola Cornick

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: July 30, 2013

Lady Lucy MacMorlan is a perfect lady, a perfect daughter to her father, and a perfect sibling to her surviving brothers and sisters, but perfect Lucy harbors some secrets that would seriously jeopardize her reputation for perfection. Few people know that she was the author of a series of erotic letters she had been paid to write for her brother Lachlan and his friends, resulting in their scandalous success at their  amorous escapades. Nobody knows the reason Lucy is so devoted to the memory of her older, scholarly fiancé that she has refused to consider another suitor since his death. Nobody knows what Lucy does with the money she makes from her letter writing. It’s her need for funds that persuades Lucy against her instinct to write more letters for Lachlan. This time the letters are not for an opera dancer but for the young woman betrothed to Robert, Marquis of Methven.

Robert, Marquis of Methven, is furious that his promised bride has left him waiting at the altar and eloped with Lachlan MacMorlan. It’s not that Methven loves the girl, but he does love his land and feel responsible for those who dwell on it. Thanks to his estrangement from his grandfather, his absence from Scotland at his grandfather’s death, and the terms of a fifteenth-century treaty, he stands to lose half his ancestral lands to a man who will exploit and abuse his clansmen. Marriage to Lord Brodie’s daughter and a legitimate heir from their marriage would have fulfilled the treaty terms, but the list of other women who would satisfy those terms is nonexistent. Then his lawyer informs him that Lady Lucy MacMorlan, as a descendant of the original Earl of Cardross, will fulfill the terms as well. And Methven knows that he will make Lucy his bride, but he has no idea of the trials that await him on his journey to that goal.

Readers who like intelligent heroines will find much to like in Lucy who even as a sixteen-year-old preferred reading books to dreaming about her future husband. Who would ever imagine all that the proper daughter of a duke was learning from those books she read--erotic poetry and swordplay and all sorts of things that would later prove useful. Some may think that some of her choices suggest that she could have used more pragmatism mixed with her book learning, but people, even smart ones, do make foolish decisions when driven by their fears. And Lucy is convinced that marriage and passion and pregnancy lead to certain death, an irrational idea but an understandable one given her experience. When her love for Methven grows stronger than her fear, it’s a real test of that love’s power as well as evidence that Lucy has healed enough to leave behind the broken, terrified adolescent that she has been behind her carefully cultivated image of perfection.

Methven has the leader’s sense of responsibility for his people and the protectiveness of his woman that are conventionally primary alpha characteristics, but he delights in Lucy’s strengths and is incredibly tender when that quality is what she needs. He is also willing to admit that he is wrong. In other words, he is a complex, compelling, satisfying hero.

Cornick also provides some interesting secondary characters. Lucy’s sister Mairi and Methven’s cousin Jack are excellent foils for the protagonists and promising future leads. Lucy’s godmother is amusing, and I adored Methven’s fierce grandmother. But my favorite part of the book was the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society. I wanted to join them. I did find the villain flat, but I find that a common weakness in historical romance fiction.

The Lady and the Laird is the first of Cornick’s Scottish Brides series. I look forward to Mairi and Jack’s story, One Night with the Laird, which will be released on October 29. The story of Christina, the eldest MacMorlan sister who is already a spinster, may prove to be the most fascinating of the three.

I’m not a reader who reaches for a romance just because it’s set in Scotland, but I have read several Scottish romances recently, with mixed results. I wonder if more are being written than usual. Are you a fan of Scottish romances? Why do you think they are so much more popular than romances set in Ireland?