The Rake is the story of Lady Georgiana Halley, 24, and Tristan Carroway, Viscount Dare, 30, who may have been at one time but is not now a rake.

Six years ago, in order to win a wager, Tristan took a stocking from Georgiana and, while obtaining it, her virginity. Apparently because it would interfere with her self-righteous fury, Georgie ignored the fact that everyone thinks Tristan lost the wager and has spent the intervening years hating him and turning down dozens of marriage proposals from other men.

Now Georgiana wants revenge. To teach Tristan that he can’t just go around breaking women’s hearts, she’ll make him fall in love with her, then dump him so he’ll know how it feels. To help accomplish this, she arranges to move into his house as a companion to his elderly aunts. I guess six years of stewing was enough.

Tristan, because he’s not an infant, realizes immediately that the unsubtle Georgie is up to something but he doesn’t know what. He’ll have to wait and see, however, because he’s got more important problems. His father, an extremely bad money manager, left him a title and a pile of debts, and he’s been trying to dig the family out ever since. Tristan’s worked hard to bring the estates back into profitability but it still looks like he’ll have to marry an heiress.

There’s just one problem - he can’t bring himself to marry someone he doesn’t care for, and he still has feelings for Georgiana.

Why that is, I can’t begin to tell you. I don’t know what she was like six years ago, but when the story opens she is an immature little hypocrite. She’s not just sanctimonious and rude, she attempts to do Tristan physical damage any time he’s within range of her shoes, his aunt’s wheelchair and her fan (several of which she actually breaks over him). Apparently her rules of polite behaviour apply only to men; “ladies” may insult and assault with impunity.

She’s also so wrapped up in herself that she’s completely blind to Tristan’s true nature. In addition to the fact that he completely protected her from any consequences of their previous liaison, he is an affectionate nephew to the two elderly aunts he invited to live with him (even though he could ill afford it). He is kind and supportive to his four younger brothers and he replaces every single fan Georgiana breaks over him with a new one - always something she finds lovely and appealing. In other words, he’s a kind, admirable, imaginative and romantic man (good looking goes without saying, right?) and deserves better than Georgie.

Fortunately, at about the mid-point, there is a significant turn-around in Georgie’s behavior. I’m a little disappointed that some vigorous sex was apparently what she needed to rearrange her brain cells and try to be grateful that this has turned into a romance I can enjoy. Georgie actually starts listening to Tristan and entertaining, meaningful and romantic interaction with him is the result. I enjoyed the second half of the book much, much more than the first, but if I hadn’t been reviewing it I wouldn’t have made it that far. There were no early indications that a reasonable and likable person hid inside Georgie.

A cast of secondary characters makes important contributions to the story and even the ones who are just sketched are quite real. Their machinations - either for or against a relationship between Georgie and Tristan - helped keep my interest in the story alive even when Georgie was trying to throttle it.

There is also an author’s note where Chapter Thirteen should be, archly informing us that Tristan and Georgie have enough problems without adding unlucky chapter numbers. How cute. Unfortunately, the last thing this uneven book needed was the author standing up and waving at us in the middle of it.

--Judi McKee