It took me a little while to get into this relationship. Richard is guarded to the point that I felt like I was being kept on the outside as well. He's not quite prickly, but he's not very easygoing. But, as he grew, so did my fondness of him. By the end I was quite pleased, and I think this is actually my favorite couple in this series, which was a surprise. ( )

This was every bit as good as the previous books! Beautiful writing style, very engaging and perfectly-paced plot, and a wonderful new couple to gush over! ( )

Perfect end to this trilogy, and I loved it; also grateful that a library picked it up as I’d been waiting. Richard and David have both been fascinating enigmas throughout, and it was wonderful to finally see them in all their pining glory. The overarching plot was resolved beautifully, and I’m happy to see Richard and David (and the rest of the crew) get their HEAs. ( )

***Reread and finished on 30 mei 2019***
The way I can't stop reading and the way I utterly enjoyed myself means I'm finally upgrading this from a 4 star to a 5 star. Maybe I will reread this next year?

***First review on 6 April 2016***
I was waiting for this to come out. And at long last!

I read it in one sitting.

The problem with waiting and anticipating for a book is that rarely it lives up to what you thought it would be. This was the case. It was nothing like I thought it would be.

It was better.

Way better.

I had this whole monologue about why this book is so amazing. Why this series just do it for me. Why I think the author is like chocolate. Just one piece is never enough.

But I can't because that would require me to make sentences that make sense fuck it. That whole sentence was a train wreck. It can only get better, right? So read on if you want to read a opinion that may or may not make sense.

Here it goes.

I like to think I'm way smarter than people who lived like 3000 before Christ. Why? Because I'm arrogant like that. Because I have acces to the wisdom of those that came before me. So therefore I'm smarter right? Yeah no. Hell no.

It's so easy to forget that humans throughout history have thought about human behaviour. Also they have got it right on many occasions. It's not new or anything. So when I read this:

“You’re a radical,” Richard said abruptly.
“You don’t believe in the social order. Would you find
service…” He didn’t want to say it. “Uncomfortable? Beneath you? Demeaning?”
“Service. Like, for example, valeting?”
Richard set his teeth. “Like that, yes.”
“Aye, I would. Reason being, I don’t see that one man should have fancy clothes while a hundred wear rags, so valeting would be demeaning as all hell for me, because I’d be going against everything I believe. Whereas it’d be demeaning for you because you’re a lordship, and you think you’ve a right to have your boots shined.” Mason propped himself against the shelves, folding his arms. “David, now, he takes pride in his work, so demeaning for him would be valeting for some bugger who didn’t care what he looked like. Which is a long way to say we all got different opinions. I’d feel bloody demeaned if I had to be told how to put my trousers on, and I’ll wager you
don’t.”
“That is not what—” Richard began, and stopped himself because he refused to get into such an absurd argument.
Mason tapped a book, considering. “You know how they say you need to put yourself in another man’s shoes?”
“To understand his position. Yes?”
“Aye, but that’s the thing. Put yourself in his shoes, and it’s still yourself. Your feet don’t fit my shoes, never will. You need to see things how the other fellow sees ’em, not put yourself in his place, because you’re not him. Not something I’m much good at,” Mason added. “I’d have been better in my work if I was. Tell you who’s good at other people: David.”
“Of course he is,” Richard said, his voice stifled.
“Saw that the other day when he asked my help with that problem. He sits there thinking: What does the other man know? What does he believe? What does he want? What does he fear? Works his way through what’s in the other fellow’s head and then uses it to get his own way. Or, I should say, your way.”
Richard stared at his hands, the hands David had cared for and kissed. Mason was right, damn him. Richard had considered himself, the marquess’s son, in a valet’s position and not liked it. He had considered everything from the perspective of a lord, thinking of his own duties and responsibilities. After all his regrets and promises to Dominic, he still had not listened.
David had known the risks in the gulf that lay between them, and accepted them. But rather than seeing that, Richard had put his own oversized feet into David’s narrower shoes and ripped them apart at the seams.
His work had not been demeaning, until Richard had demeaned it to his face.
“Christ,” Richard said into his knees. “Christ.”

Well I was humbled, ashamed and a bit repulsed with my own short sightedness. Because then it hit me. People have thought about their place in the world they live in before. It's almost something universal. Also people do have pride in doing menial work. For some reason I always forget that.

Example:

Once, when I was a teenager, I was talking smack about housewives. Why they would go to college just to become someone housebound? Why would they make themselves economically dependent on their spouses? And so on. I was being a little shit like only teenagers can be. Holier than thou attitude and so fucking righteous.

Then my (foster)mom said one sentence that shut me right up: 'You do realize I'm technically a housewife, right?'
After a short pause (because I had to think about that *facepalm*) I apologized for even thinking that. Also I thanked her. Because in that moment I realized the difference between putting yourself in someone's shoes and actually understanding someone.

So when I was reading that passage it hit me again that I was being a little shit. I always thought that people in regency books hated their station. Like why be a servant if you could be a duke right? It was why I liked reading about impoverished hero(ines) who marry above their station. Because higher is better, right? Like Richard I forgot that that's not always the case. And you're being a douche for assuming that everyone thinks like that.

What the author does very well is making me realize that people throughout ages have had this same problem. What if you fall in love with someone not in your class? Of your station? But different then other modern authors I have read she doesn't try to make the servant someone better. Also she made me realize that I'm a privileged shit for just thinking I would do this way better then the people in the past would have done.

And that's why this author is one of my favourites. What seems to be just a simple story about a Lord and a Servant turned out for me to be about love and how to accept someone just as they are. But also about compromise and how to do that when everything have to be a secret.

One last thought and totally random with nothing to do with the story:
I don't like reading love stories about slaves and slave owners throughout 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. There are too many evidence to show how horrible that time was and the consequences are still visible even in today's age (something more recent but also something that I don't like reading about: love stories about Nazis and their love interests who were their captives or enemies. Too many evidence why they were horrible versus why they weren't). It takes skill to weave a story that is not only respectful but also accurate of the (unspoken) rules people adhere to then. Any other time period wouldn't bother me because, well to be honest, that was so long ago it's impact has lessened. Vikings also had slaves, crusaders would also be taken as slaves. Doesn't bother me at all. But this time period... Yeah no. Most authors can't pull this off. They fetishsize romanticize the whole affair or make the slave grateful for the attentions of his owner (sidenote: curiously enough I have no problem with these termes in a BDSM setting. Although I can see why some people do). Or other things that just feel wrong.

But. I think this author could do it. And for me that's one of the highest praise I can give. It's deeply personal and I can't come up with specific reasons why, But what I read of this author, she knows her stuff and has skills that leaves me in awe. Because even if it is a subject I'm uncomfortable with I truly believe I would enjoy reading such a story if she did it. High praise indeed. ( )

After spending *checks notes* a couple of months with these characters rereading and listening, it's easy to say many more superlative things than I did in my review for A Seditious Affair. If I was left speechless initially upon reading them, there's a reason. If I ended up loving Julius more than in his own book, it's certainly justified. (I can, in fact, say that for most of KJC's characters. She builds a world and a family, and I like to get lost in it).

Often, I find myself loving romances between people where one is fairly self-actualized and the other grows. In this book, I think that's the case. It's just the commanding and lovely Richard who happens to have a long path to travel to deserve his happy ending. And David's commitment and dignity-And pride-that get him there, along with help from his friends. David's love for Richard and his pride in his work have been evident since the first, since a recurring mention of Richard's impeccable dress and, in particular, his boots. What kind of beautiful genius is KJC for this thread…

" I am very well as I am, and if you cannot lower yourself to fuck the man who cleans your boots, you may not have me.”

There's a whole hell of a lot of impossible external forces at work in this book, not the least in which the relationship is taking place between a valet and the gentleman he serves.

"Therefore, one did not even ask, because one could never be sure that a “yes” didn’t mask “because I must.”


And it works. It's such an interesting execution of complex dynamics of consent, loyalty, and choice. The conflicts in this book between the characters are among my favorite I've read, particularly one where Silas is featured and once again shows us why we love the werewolf.


I absolutely adore David. I find the characters who are amoral the most fascinating. In this novel, David's love and loyalty and not his position are what make him vulnerable. His competence and ruthlessness just add another layer to his power.

“It’s my pleasure,” David said, and then, very softly, added, “It always was.”


( )