Synopsis:
Although I think others in the family besides Mirabella know that Mirabella's friend Sarah committed suicide, only Mirabella knows that she didn't do it out of despair at the thought of being a spinster all her life. No, Sarah committed suicide because some cad who had no intention of marrying her got her pregnant. Now Mirabella is determined to find that man and keep him from seducing other women, even if it means ruining her own reputation.
All she knows about him is that he's shorter than most men, has a scar on his neck, and danced with Sarah. Fortunately, Mirabella still has Sarah's dance cards. Unfortunately, most men have their necks hidden by neckcloths. The best way Mirabella can think of to check them is to find a moment alone with them, get them to kiss her, and then stick her fingers under their neckcloths while they're distracted by the kiss. The rumor mill seems to be a bit slow, so Mirabella's reputation may make it through the Season, but then something horrible happens...Mirabella's fiance comes back.
Catching his fiancee kissing another man seems, to Camden, to be as good a reason as any to call his marriage off. Since his last fiancee was caught doing the very same thing, he might even be better off not marrying at all. However, his family, nearly ruined by his father's gambling debts, really needs Mirabella's dowry, so Camden sets his teeth, swallows his pride, and asks Mirabella to at least pretend to be his fiancee for a while longer. At first, Mirabella refuses, much to Camden's shock. With her reputation close to being ruined, why wouldn't she agree to marry someone? Mirabella eventually relents, however, out of worry over her father's fragile health.
Although Mirabella doesn't continue kissing men in order to check under their neckcloths, she does do other outlandish things, like pretending to be a maid and even a man, in order to continue her quest for the man whose actions led to Sarah's death. Because she refuses to tell Camden why she's doing what she's doing, out of fear that he'll tell her to stop, Camden is convinced that, as much as he enjoys Mirabella's company and is attracted by her, she's entirely the wrong sort of woman to marry. Even if Mirabella does find the man who seduced Sarah, will her efforts ruin her chance at finding happiness with Camden?
Review:
The best thing I can say about this book was that it was very readable – I got through it fairly quickly. However, it was definitely not the book for me, for several reasons.
One of those reasons was Mirabella. I hated Mirabella. I hated her for not thinking things through, for not seeing all the possible consequences of her actions, and for abusing the power she had over her maid. She didn't care what happened to her reputation, but she worried that it would affect her father's health if he heard what she had been doing. And yet she kept on kissing men anyway, and didn't stop until after Camden came back. Even after Camden came back, she continued to do things that could have ruined her reputation and would have upset her father. Who made sure things didn't go hideously wrong? Camden. He got her out of the club before anyone realized there was a woman dressed as a man among them, and he hushed up anyone he found out had kissed her.
