Harlequin Historical, $6.50, ISBN 978-0-373-29829-7
Historical Romance, 2015

Bound by Duty is the first entry in Diane Gaston’s The Scandalous Summerfields series, and oops, this one slipped through the cracks while I reviewed the next two books first a few years ago. Never mind, it’s never too late for me to give this one my TLC.

Just to recap, this series is about the Summerfield sisters, whose father died after wiping out all their dowry money to buy their brother some place in the military, and the eldest sister Lorene married a much older man to get the money for the other two sisters Tess and Genna to marry for love. I’m not sure why money is needed when one wants to marry for love, but good for the author to tacitly give a nod to reality: a happy marriage costs a lot of money, so the husband has better be super hot and super rich.

This one is Tess’s story. Like all sensible romance heroines in a story set in 19th century England, she can’t wait to go out and about and be stuck in a ferocious thunderstorm that sees her nearly getting drowned. She is rescued by our hero Marc Glenville, who is the blue-blooded spy sort, and they spend a night at a cottage. Needless to say, they are compromised and they need to get married.

Oh no, this is Tess’s worst fear: marrying a hot guy with lots of money, truly a terrible thing because he doesn’t shout at her every five minutes that he loves her the most in this entire universe.

Okay, he is kind, gentlemanly, courteous, and generous with his money when it comes to her buying nice clothes and everything else to her heart’s content. Nothing much else happens during the first third or so of this story aside from our heroine being treated like she’s the most beloved and precious snowflake ever in the universe. Sure, this section is tad dull because nothing else is happening, but it also ends up being the best thing about this story.

You see, Tess can’t remain content and feel blessed that she is not saddled with an old and fat husband, the bane of virtuous heroines everywhere.

Because Marc is a spy and he has to do spy-ish things without telling her what he is doing, our heroine comes up with this fantasy that Marc loves some other woman, and she has robbed him of his chance to marry that woman.

Instead of then jumping off the top balcony to perish melodramatically so that the hero is then free to marry his true love, she starts treating him like dirt and making him wonder what he has done to hurt her. His own parents couldn’t reconcile after their many, many arguments, so he now feels worried that history is repeating itself with him and the wife he is actually fond of.

This plot is stupid, because it’s basically an idiot jumping to the worst conclusions all the time due to her imbecile brain, and also because it’s drawn out for so long, way too long.

It won’t be so bad if Tess experienced character growth and maturity at the end, but no, instead the author throws in the obligatory spy action hero stuff for the denouement, and the heroine finally realizes that she is the most special person in the hero’s heart, so now she has won, she is perfect, and she can finally find contentment in her marriage.

She has barely married him and she’s already acting like a selfish, insecure, and whiny git. How long before she goes insane because he has to do more spy stuff in the future and can’t be around all the time to assure her that she is indeed the most precious creature in existence? What if he had to talk to or share a public space with another woman?

I can only imagine that the idiot would be committed into a loonybin before the year is out because she really can’t accept the idea that love is more than just her beau worshiping her existence 24/7.

Diane Gaston is an old hat at this, so the story is of course readable. The heroine’s immaturity, self-absorption, incessant manic bouts of insecurity, and inability to make even halfway rational decisions or conclusions however make this one still a bitter dose of medicine to swallow, so to speak. It is one thing to be Bound by Duty, but Tess Summerfield needs to be bound and gagged so that peace of mind would be restored across the land.