Return to New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Hoyt’s signature drama and intrigue, where two enemies will discover if their marriage of convenience can survive — ’til death do they part.
Ambitious, sly, and lethally intelligent, Gideon Hawthorne has spent his life clawing his way up from the gutter. For the last ten years, he’s acted as the Duke of Windemere’s fixer, performing the duke’s dirty work without question. Now Gideon’s ready to quit the duke’s service and work solely for himself. But Windermere tempts Gideon with an irresistible offer: one last task for Messalina Greycourt’s hand in marriage.
Witty, vivacious Messalina Greycourt has her pick of suitors, so when her uncle demands Messalina marry Mr. Hawthorne, she is appalled. But Gideon offers her a devil’s bargain of his own: protection and freedom in exchange for a true marriage. Messalina feigns agreement and plots to escape their deal. Only the more time she spends with Gideon, the more her fierce, loyal husband arouses her affections. But will Gideon’s final deed for Windemere destroy the love growing between them?
-
Sexual Content - 4/5
4/5
-
Violence - 3/5
3/5
-
Language - 4/5
4/5
-
Drugs and Alcohol - 1/5
1/5
Summary
It seems like I’ve been waiting forever for this second installment of Elizabeth Hoyt’s new Greycourt series. I read the first one just over two years ago, so it’s been a long time between books, making me very eager to dive into When a Rogue Meets His Match. This one features Messalina, the second-oldest (I believe) of the Greycourt siblings. At the end of the previous book, she was spirited away by Gideon Hawthorne, her evil uncle’s bully boy, and this one begins with him returning her home, where her uncle essentially forces her to marry Gideon. Messalina doesn’t like him much, but she makes a deal with him in order to get part of her dowry, intending to use it to escape. But the more time she spends with Gideon, the more she starts to see unexpected depths in him and begins to fall in love. But when she finally finds out that her uncle offered Gideon her hand in marriage in exchange for killing her oldest brother, all bets may be off.
Messalina’s parents died when she was just a girl. She and her sister, Lucretia, were sent to live with a maiden aunt, but when the aunt died, too, they ended up in the custody of their horrible uncle. Tired of being controlled by a man, Messalina is an independent woman with plans to forge her own path in life. If she marries, she wants to choose her husband, but she’s equally content with the idea of running away with her younger sister and starting a whole new life. Then Gideon all but kidnaps her from a country house party she was attending, returning her to her uncle’s clutches. There she’s informed that she’ll be marrying Gideon, a prospect that she vehemently refuses, until he strikes a bargain with her. He offers to give her half her dowry money in exchange for willingly consummating their marriage within one month. Deciding that she can bear sleeping with him just once in order to get the funds she and Lucretia will need to run away, Messalina agrees. However, as she lives in the same house with him over the next few weeks, she begins to see a different side of him that makes her decision to leave harder and harder until she discovers the awful truth of why her uncle offered her to Gideon in the first place. Messalina strikes the perfect balance between being confident and independent while also being sweet and kind. Having known Gideon for a number of years and knowing what he does for her uncle, she’s never really liked him even though he’s quite physically attractive. But as she begins to uncover all the little hidden depths to his character, she can’t help falling for him. I also liked that in spite of her growing up as an aristocrat, she isn’t a snob. While she hasn’t necessarily thought much about what life is like for the lower classes, she’s very open-minded when Gideon schools her on these realities and she genuinely wants to do something to help the less fortunate. That extends to generously and patiently teaching Gideon about what will be expected of him if has any hope of fully entering and being accepted by society. Ultimately she also manages to love him in spite of his deeply checkered past.
Gideon had a very rough life growing up, and by the time he reached his teen years, he was a champion knife fighter. This is where Messalina’s Uncle Augustus found him and offered him a job doing all his dirty work. Through the years, he’s observed Messalina and knows all the little things that make her who she is. Although he doesn’t really realize it until late in the story, I believe he’d fallen in love with her before he ever married her, because she was the only one he wanted. Eventually growing tired of working for Augustus and having used the money he earned to build his own business, he decided to leave Augustus’s employment. But given that he was the one who knew where all the bodies were buried so to speak, Augustus was reluctant to let him go. He struck a bargain that Gideon would do one last unnamed job for him and in exchange he could have Messalina’s hand in marriage, which was too sweet a deal to pass up. Of course, it wasn’t until after he married Messalina that he discovered the job was killing her brother, Julian, and that Augustus would be holding back half the dowry money until the task was completed. Despite all the nasty work he’s done for Augustus, Gideon has never killed a man in cold blood before, so it pricks his conscience. Still, he’s determined to get the money, something he needs to build out his investments in the coal mining business and finally be accepted by society. But the more time he spends with Messalina, the weaker his resolve to do it becomes until he knows he would lose her if he did, something he simply cannot allow to happen. Normally I fall hard for Ms. Hoyt’s heroes, even the rough-around-the-edges ones like Gideon, and in general, I did like him. All the little tidbits of his character development made me pretty sympathetic toward him, but for some reason, I still didn’t quite fall all the way in love with him.
Overall, in spite of my uncertainties about Gideon, When a Rogue Meets His Match was another great story from this favorite author that I enjoyed. I can’t quite put my finger on what it was about Gideon that didn’t entirely work for me, something that rarely happens. Although he shows care for Messalina right from the start, he is rather mercenary in his pursuits, so perhaps it was that. Or maybe it was because for the better part of the story, he was pretty intent on killing Julian. He also didn’t seem to be quite as generous of a lover as Ms. Hoyt’s heroes usually are. I’m not really sure what it was, or maybe it was everything combined. Also while the ending was sufficiently satisfying, it doesn’t quite wrap up in a neat little bow. We never find out exactly why Augustus wants Julian dead, and the suspicious death of Messalina’s sister, Aurelia, remains a mystery as well. However, I’m willing to give Ms. Hoyt a pass, because based on some of her previous work, I have a feeling she’s saving these reveals for a future story of the series. And I must say that I’m very much looking forward to continuing. She’s introduced quite a number of intriguing supporting players throughout these first two novels who would make great heroes and heroines, so the series could potentially go on for quite some time. If it does, I can’t wait to learn more about them, especially Julian. The next one, No Ordinary Duchess, is due for release sometime late this year (2021). I don’t know yet which characters will star in it, but I’m very eager to find out.
Review provided by The Hope Chest Reviews