Reasoning that if he can keep the news of their ruin at bay until his sisters make suitable marriages, he manages to keep the family afloat by virtue of his skill at the card tables for the next couple of years, although with the elder of his sisters soon to make her début, Hugh realises that the day of reckoning is at hand. Faced with the prospect of revealing the true state of their finances to his grieving mother, and destroying utterly her memories of the love of her life, Hugh finds he just can’t do it. He’s left with only one option – he must make the sacrifice his father never had to make, and marry for money. The fortune amassed by Hugh’s forebears - including the money that was meant to have provided his mother’s jointure and his sisters’ dowries – is gone, and the entail on the Hastings estate means Hugh is unable to sell any land or properties in order to pay off the debts. It’s only after his death and Hugh’s accession to the title that he discovers that his father’s conviviality concealed a staggering degree of financial irresponsibility.

Hugh Deveraux, Earl of Hastings, is something of an odd-one-out among romance heroes, because he grew up in a stable, caring family, his parents were a love-match and he had an excellent relationship with his father, whose unfailing good temper and generosity made him popular and beloved among his peers. Linden puts a different spin on the marriage-of-convenience trope in this story of a decent, well-intentioned man who becomes so tangled up in wanting to do the best for everyone around him that he risks the destruction of his own happiness. An Earl Like You, book two in her Wagers of Sin series, ticks all those boxes and then some, as Ms. When I pick up a book by Caroline Linden, I know I’m going to be able to lose myself in a beautifully written character driven novel featuring fully-rounded characters with terrific chemistry, and a romance that evolves naturally and which is always at the forefront of the story. I've given this an A- at AAR, so that's 4.5 stars rounded up

An Earl Like You by Caroline Linden