Felicity Pembroke, shortly before her marriage, saves Thomas Moreland after he's been stabbed and robbed. He knows her name but she doesn't know his. They move on like ships in the night. She marries and he makes a fortune in India...but he's never forgotten the angel that saved him and comes back to win her after her husband dies.
I was totally on board with this and couldn't wait to see how it played out, but I'm almost halfway through and can't continue.
Felicity, now widowed, is trying to take care of her younger brother and sister. The sister at 17 or so is flighty and immature and her brother only a touch younger than she, is irresponsible and gambles their money away. Here I like Felicity. She strong and intelligent and working very hard to keep the family intact despite her sibling's attempts to ruin them. Thomas learns of her problems and buys the brother's vouchers so he can approach Felicity and convince her to help introduce his 18 year old sister into Bath society. That's part of his plan to win her.
Thomas is an ass. He swoops in, buys her complacency because she can't afford to say no, dictates everything to her like he's king with no discussion, and never once tells her how they met. Why? It's not as if they have a scandalous past. In fact, Felicity would likely be pleased to have met him again after all this time. Instead, she's angry at him, and rightfully so, because he treats her like a child. I'm next stunned when all of a sudden she falls for him because he helped her out one time despite hearing something horrible about Thomas's past (it's a lie but she doesn't know that).
But of course to pump up the drama, you have a pair manipulating Felicity and trying to ruin Thomas. Necessary I suppose because the the secret doesn't make sense and the story needs a distraction.
But most of it comes back to the fact that Thomas is keeping this secret and there is no reason for him to keep it. I know the secret will be revealed at some point. Maybe Felicity will be happy, maybe she'll have some ridiculous reason to be angry with him about it (besides the rightful anger that he lied to her all this time) but I just don't care.
