Helpful Score: 1
In the conclusion of Beverley's Three Guys Called George trilogy, Major "Hawk" Hawkinville returns from the horrors of Waterloo to find his father incapacitated by a stroke, the estate coffers nearly emptied by his father's legal maneuverings to gain the title of Lord Deveril, and the villagers looking to him to make necessary, but costly, repairs. Hawk sees no solution but to marry for money, and if he can marry the heiress to the Deveril estates his stricken father believes himself entitled to, so much the better. But when Hawk actually meets the so-called Devil's Heiress, he has a difficult time reconciling the image of the grasping, promiscuous woman his father so vividly painted for him with the slightly mousy, Mary Wollstonecraft-quoting Clarissa Greystone he seeks to seduce and wed. But even an innocent like Clarissa has secrets, deadly secrets that endanger not only her future happiness but also her very life. Can she trust Hawk, a self-proclaimed fortune hunter, to help her? Can Hawk learn to trust--and to love--Clarissa even when he believes she had something to do with the murder of her affianced, the debauched Lord Deveril? It's a case of "Who's on first?" with a violent tug-of-war between Clarissa's powerful allies and the forces that seek to harm her. Jo Beverley continues her string of hits with her trademark complexity and real characters.
