Review: King Of Hearts by Eileen Putman

Title: King Of Hearts

          (League Of Rogues)

Author: Eileen Putman

Release Date: September 26, 2017

Publisher: Anglesey Press

Category: Historical Romance

Type: Digital

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Eileen Putman Website

 

Blurb:

Not for nothing is Gabriel Sinclair known as the King of Hearts. This rootless scoundrel won't be tamed. His wit beguiles, his charm seduces, and he's never met a woman he couldn’t captivate. As for family? He's seen enough madness in his own to last a lifetime. He shuns hopeless causes, deeper emotions, any whiff of permanence.

Widowed Louisa Peabody tolerates no man's touch. Her past has shown her men are seducers and abusers. She devotes herself to helping women in need, but her clumsy efforts often end in disaster. After she accidentally saves Gabriel’s life, she persuades him to help her stage a daring rescue from a prison hulk in the Thames.

But it’s a devil’s bargain: Can she protect herself from that wild, reckless fire in his eyes? Can he care for anyone but himself?

The League of Rogues series features daring English lords who risk all for their country. Hardened and deadly, they have no use for love—until it ensnares them…

By reading any further, you are stating that you are at least 18 years of age.

If you are under the age of 18, please exit this site.

Favorite Line(s):

The man could coax a smile from a fencepost.   ~   Louisa

Dialogue Highlight:

“Trying to ease your conscience?” His voice was low, meant for her alone.

Louisa looked up from her plate. “I beg your pardon?”

“Guilt, Miss Peabody. That and discomfort lie within your lovely blue eyes. I must be the cause of it.”

“You flatter yourself, sir.”

Sinclair merely popped one of Lily’s biscuits into his mouth and briefly closed his eyes in an expression of contentment. “Exquisite,” he murmured. “Heaven has not seen biscuits like these.” Then his gaze fixed appreciatively on Lily. “My compliments, ma’am.”

Lily flushed and passed him the platter, which held one remaining biscuit. Violet shyly poured him another glass of wine. Daisy filled his plate with another helping of her dandelion greens. All eyes were riveted on him. Even Rose followed his every move. With no apparent effort, Sinclair held them in thrall.

“Stop,” Louisa said.

He eyed her blandly. “Is something amiss?”

“You know the answer.” She tossed her napkin on the table.

Sinclair eyed the solitary biscuit he had just plucked from the platter. “Very well,” he said with a heavy sigh, placing it gently on her napkin. “Take the last one, then. I shall console myself with the knowledge that sacrifice imbues the soul with nobility.”

Giggles filled the room. A lazy smile flitted over his lips, though his eyes seemed curiously devoid of mirth.

“You are much enamored of your own cleverness,” Louisa said.

“Alas, you are not. Enamored, that is.”

“You may think yourself a veritable king of hearts, but we are not the sort to be taken in by rogues —”

“King of hearts?” His brows rose. “Not that it doesn’t have a fine ring to it, but —”

“— or despicable criminals,” she finished.

He eyed her thoughtfully. “Though you are one, of course. And by their accounts, everyone in this room as well.”

Louisa stared at him.

“Snatching prisoners from the jaws of their punishment seems to be something of a habit with you, Miss Peabody. I do not believe the law looks charitably upon the practice.”

Did he mean to blackmail her? Surely not, for as a condemned man, Sinclair had much to lose himself.

Louisa’s gaze flew to David, who sat on a stool near the door, a guarded expression on his face. He did not often take his meals with them, but she had asked him to stay for dinner in the event Sinclair did something rash.

Their guest did not look foolhardy, however. Masculine arrogance sat firmly upon his shoulders. He exuded the confidence of a man certain he could seduce any woman in the room. In that, Louisa thought darkly, he was quite wrong.

“So, it seems that you and I have something in common — we are both criminals,” he continued. “Indeed, you seem without remorse for your crimes. If you do not want that biscuit, by the way, I will take it back.”

“I am not a criminal,” she snapped.

He reached over and retrieved the biscuit from the folds of her napkin. As he took a bite, his eyelids slid down — almost, but not quite, veiling his intense pleasure. Louisa studied him uneasily. There was something about Sinclair that hinted at rare, unbridled appetites.

“But you are,” he said at last, picking up their conversation. “If the authorities knew of your activities you’d be sitting in Newgate yourself this very minute. Or perhaps languishing in a rotted prison hulk, playing skittles with the guards, listening to the debauchery below deck, and hoping someone would have the foolishness to come up with a suicidal plan to rescue you.”

The room had grown still. The women shifted awkwardly.

“We have broken the law,” Louisa conceded. “Perhaps, in the eyes of some, we are criminals. But in truth we are victims —”

“Ah. That makes it all right, then.” He turned, as if the subject were forgotten. “Miss Lily, I don’t suppose you have any more of those biscuits hidden somewhere?”

Excerpt:

“David has found a fisherman who will provide us with a rowboat,” she said. “Sam will wait with the carriage along the river just east of the hulk. Once we have Miss Wentworth, we need only row downriver to him, hide the boat, and be off. I believe that is everything on the list.”

Now he turned. “You rely on a boy to hold a coach and four?”

“Sam is capable of managing a team. He practically lives in the stable.”

“Forgive me,” he said, with elaborate politeness. “For a moment I thought you were relying on an untrained lad to do a man’s job.” His mouth thinned into a mirthless smirk.

“Ah, but he is not untrained, is he? You must have used him previously in your schemes. Did he have any choice in the matter?” Louisa sensed a resentment in him that went beyond the simple fact of Sam’s involvement. “They are not ‘schemes.’ They are missions to help those who cannot defend themselves against the men who run our legal system.”

 “The boy feels as you do, of course.”

She hesitated. Sam repeatedly begged to be allowed to help, but his enthusiasm derived more from the pull of adventure than principle. She had taken care to use him only in support roles well away from their most daring activities, but perhaps even that put him at risk.

“Come, now, madam,” Sinclair prodded, “you must know what the lad thinks about risking his neck to flout the king’s laws. Surely you are aware that his age will offer scant protection should he be caught.”

In that, he had a point, Louisa realized. A soldier or guard likely would not take the time to discern whether he was but a lad. “Sam is fully capable of the responsibilities we give him, but perhaps we should examine whether his presence is necessary in the future.”

“And whether he is entitled to a childhood.”

That startled her. She wondered at the tension in his voice, but he quickly belied that, idly brushing a piece of lint from the lapel of his coat and stifling a yawn. “With all due regard to your late father, I do not believe I will wear this jacket tonight. It is rather tight about the shoulders and would hamper —”

“Sam will be out of harm’s way,” Louisa insisted. “All he need do is watch the horses.”

“My dear Miss Peabody,” he replied in apparent surprise, “I never suggested otherwise.”

It was as if she had entered a hall of mirrors in which every reflection was distorted. Each conversation with Sinclair bent her sense of him into a different image. Try as she might, Louisa could not get a fix on the man. She would not believe that he cared two figs about Sam or, indeed, about anything. He seemed too hollow, too empty, too devoid of real warmth. Indeed, his flippant remarks and sardonic humor bespoke nothing so much as contempt. He would not have helped them tonight without her princely payment; Sinclair cared for no one but himself.

Of compassion and empathy he had none. That practiced smile, that easy wit — they did not fool her. He was a despicable human being, a rake, a scoundrel, a snake, a —

“Finished?” he asked.

Louisa nearly jumped. “I-I beg your pardon?”

“I merely wondered whether you had finished cataloguing my sins and were ready to go over the plans for tonight.”

She felt her face flush. “Yes, of course.”

“Shouldn’t you summon the giant? I assume he still means to accompany us. I shouldn’t like to think of you rowing me and Miss Wentworth all that distance alone.”

“David will join us shortly.” Louisa sat in the chair at her writing table, trying to recover her poise. She pretended to study her notes, anything to avoid meeting the man’s gaze. He saw too much — and worse, kept her off balance.

To her dismay, Sinclair crossed the room and stood over her in that intimidating fashion. “What is it?” she demanded, looking up at him.

He made a great show of studying her table. “Ah. Here they are.” He retrieved her spectacles, half-hidden by her papers, and held them out to her. “I doubt you can see anything on those papers you are pushing about so violently without these.”

She snatched the spectacles from him and put them on. “I know what you are about, sir.”

“Oh?” Sinclair wore an expression of wounded innocence. “Which of my nefarious tricks are you onto?”

“All of them,” she retorted. “You mean to lull us into false complacency, to present yourself as the most innocuous of men, when everyone knows you are the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“Alas, I am undone,” he said mournfully. “Thank the heavens for your perspicacity, else all of the women under your roof would surely become my victims.”

Louisa glared at him

“As you have so correctly observed,” he continued, “a scoundrel is not bound by the principles of common decency. Indeed, I am not fit to move in your very righteous universe. Why, the very notion that a handbill might have your face on it is unthinkable.” He stroked his chin. “‘Louisa Peabody, Feloness.’ Not that it doesn’t have an intriguing ring to it.”

Louisa rose. The top of her head came no higher than his chin. He was standing far too close for comfort, but she was determined not to be cowed. “You have the understanding of a flea, Mr. Sinclair, but that does not matter as long as you are fit to guide us tonight. Afterward, you may fall off the face of the earth with my blessing. Is that clear?”

“Quite.” His gaze roved lazily from her face down to her toes, pausing rather insolently at the parts of her that no true gentleman would linger on, before settling on her face again.

Louisa tried to banish the very peculiar warmth that extended to places where warmth was not in the least desired. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing the effect his inspection had on her. Instead, she leveled a gaze at him. “Will you do as you promised — help us free Miss Wentworth to the best of your ability?”

“Insofar as I have any ability for breaking into prison hulks and spiriting away its female denizens, I shall dedicate it to your mission, madam.”

“There!” she said accusingly. “You are doing it again. You do not say what you mean, and everything you say is meaningless.”

“Surely not everything.”

“Will you be serious, sir, or will you persist in these ridiculous jokes?” To her dismay, her voice broke. “If you plan to leave us in the lurch, I ask that you not wait until tonight to do so. It is not my fate that concerns me but that of Miss Wentworth. You would not be so cruel as to let us think you mean to help her and then —” She broke off in mortification as a tear spilled over onto her cheek.

To her dismay, he reached out and brushed the tear away with his thumb. “Do not despair, madam,” he said lightly. “Your money has purchased my loyalty — for the night, anyway.”

The intimacy of his touch shocked her. But that was nothing compared to the alarm that filled her when his hand slid insolently around the nape of her neck before falling away from her.

Louisa recoiled. “I did not give you leave to fondle me.”

An arrested expression crossed his features. For a he looked startled, and she had the distinct impression she was seeing the man himself beneath that cavalier mask. But too quickly, the mask slid into place again.

“Miss Peabody,” he said solemnly, “if you believe that to be fondling, someone has given you a rather inferior lesson on the subject.”

Review:

Louisa Peabody has had a bit of a rough go – essentially sold to her husband for the cost of her father’s debts and a wicked experience with sex, she has sworn off men. Following his … errrr … untimely death, she has gone on to create a refuge for mistreated women and, in doing so, created a little family for herself. But she fancies herself a champion of the downtrodden. After accidentally freeing Sinclair, she enlists his aid in completing the rescue mission she had been on when she mistakenly saved him from the noose. She believes the worst of Sinclair, but as they spend more time together, her resolve against men begins to crumble and the life she never wanted suddenly seems tangible.

Gabriel Sinclair has a lot of skeletons. Haunted by his childhood and tragedy and a possible legacy of madness, he’s run from his past. When an offer comes in for the sale of his island, he is drug back to the memories he has tried to escape. He didn’t bargain on the spitfire, Louisa crashing into his life, but the money she offers for his assistance isn’t something he can turn away from. Problem is, before too long, he doesn’t want to turn away from the maddening woman either. They both want different things and finding a middle ground might be impossible. Or they could both go mad trying.

The first couple of chapters of this book really threw me. So much happened and I wasn’t familiar with the characters, so I spent a bit of time trying to wrap my head around everything. But I have to tell you how thrilled I am that I did so! Ms. Putman and Heather Snow demonstrate very similar writing styles. As Ms. Snow is a favorite of mine, Ms. Putman has now also joined my list of favorites. I very much enjoy historical with strong leads, wit, banter, sexual tension, and a bit of history lesson when intertwining a piece of fact within the fiction. In this case, the history of the development of the submarine is infused throughout the story and I absolutely loved how Ms. Putman used this snippet of history in her plot. Of course, HR is nothing without the brooding, tortured male lead, and this too was executed flawlessly with Gabriel’s character. Louisa was possibly a bit ahead of her time, but no less enjoyable in her quest to make the world a bit more equal for women. Entertaining was the instance and realization that not everyone needed or appreciated her aid. 😊

 

The secondary characters all held a special place within this book and with the absence of even one, it would not have been the same. I enjoyed getting to know them and their personal stories as well. While Ms. Putman wrapped the story up pretty nicely, I am sure there are other characters that would break out as leads in a subsequent story spectacularly. Probably the most interesting would be Drew Maitland. If I am not mistaken, I seem to remember reading him being involved in the next book. One thing is for sure – Ms. Putman has something special going on within this series and I will definitely be back for any following books. Lovers of HR are sure to become engrossed in this book in no time. I found myself laughing out loud several times and then looking around to see if anyone was looking at me like I was crazy. 😊 Anytime I do such a thing, I know I’ve found a gem that will always remain holding a coveted place on my shelf. 

Kindle version provided by Pump Up Your Book/Author in exchange for an honest review.