ALWAYS A TEMPTRESS - Eileen Dreyer
A Perfect 10
Drake's Rakes , Book 3
Grand Central's Forever
USBN: 978-0-446-54205-0
October 2011
Historical Romance

England, 1815

Since the battle of Waterloo, Major Sir Harry Lidge has had one desire: to travel the world and study architecture. Before he can follow his dream he must go to a friend's wedding as the groom is a fellow member of Drake's Rakes, a few men working to save the realm from a traitorous, well-disguised group. At the wedding, Harry encounters the woman who betrayed him ten years previously, Lady Kate Seaton. When the man the Drake's Rakes is seeking suddenly dies, he implicates the whore, who Harry assumes to be Kate, as part of the conspiracy. Harry is told to protect Kate and find out what she knows. Harry hears this as kidnap Kate and hold her until she talks.

Kate is the daughter of a duke and the widow of a duke. She takes pleasure in taking precedence before her hypocritical brother, the present duke, and his wife, Glynis. All her siblings and much of society hold Kate in contempt for her behavior, but not all is as it seems. After Harry kidnaps her, Kate's past begins to unravel. Can she overcome this and beat Harry at his own game, or will she end up in an insane asylum?

The characterizations make ALWAYS A TEMPTRESS an awesome read. While they remain true to the limited mores of Regency society, both Harry and Kate have depth beyond mere good or bad behavior. Kate's sister-in-law, Bea, and the servants in her employ make fun, imaginative characters. The mystery of who is behind the traitorous group, the Lions, threads through the story involving both hero and heroine. Yet the main thrust focuses on their efforts to overcome the past and reestablish the relationship they once shared. Family secrets expose danger beyond the explosive situation between Harry and Kate. While the characters command the story, both the sumptuous and the wretched locations and the thread of this story interwoven with those from characters in previous books, weave ALWAYS A TEMPTRESS into a tantalizing tapestry of romance.

Robin Lee