The Dangerous Lord, by Sabrina Jeffries

After reading The Forbidden Lord, I immediately asked Maria Ines to lend me the next in Sabrina Jeffries' "Lord" series. The title of this one is The Dangerous Lord.

Ian Lennard needs a wife and thinks he's found the perfect one. Then a newspaper column by a notorious gossip named Lord X unwittingly exposes part of Ian's deeply hidden past. When the column scares off Ian's skittish prospective fiancée, Ian wants to skewer the gossipmonger. Using his skills as a one-time spy, he runs the man to ground.

But the "man" is a fetching young female named Felicity Taylor, whose wastrel father left her and her four young brothers so destitute that only her pitiful income from her column stands between them and ruin. Unsure of his loyalties, Felicity engages Ian in a battle of wits that fires his blood. He's soon embroiled in a war of words and passion that will lay open his dark soul to the only woman who can forgive the sins of his past and teach him how to heal.

This one was nice, a B. Like with TFL, I felt that most of the elements here weren't particularly original, but for some reason, I had fun anyway.

Obviously, I liked TFL better. Why? Mainly because Felicity was often a bit irritating and because Ian's Big Secret was really, really lame. Apart from that, I liked Ian very much and loved the sexual tension.

Jeffries' style seems to resonate with me, and I'll be looking for her backlist.