A Need for Deception

Rating:
Summary: Timeless Tales review
Review: By TT reviewer Nancy Williams [full review on our website]

It isn't exactly love at first sight when, startled by her cousin's horse, Anna Fanshaw falls into the creek. This stranger's first words are also unwelcome; he announces that Anna's home and all the land surrounding it would someday belong to him. Talk about a bad first impression. Anna realizes he's about as fine looking a man as she has ever seen, and he seems taken with her, but what kind of a villain could he be if he wants to take her home? Try as she might to hate him, (and she does try) he makes a vividly heroic first impression when he rescues a servant's child from certain death in a sow's pen. Still, Anna vows to dislike the man who may end up throwing her mother and sister and her out of their home, should something ever happen to her father. And she can only despise the laws that favor male-only inheritance.

The purpose of Tristan's visit in the first place is to learn the details of estate management, and one day when she goes about the estate with her father and Tristan, she gets hit by a low-lying tree branch, is unceremoniously swept from her mount and injures her ankle. In another gallant gesture, he lifts her to her father's arms, and then carries her to her room when they finally reach home. She can see it written all over his face as he looks at her--he's falling in love with her. But she simply can't chance trusting him, or can she?

When he learns of his own father's death in a hunting accident, he must return home to his mother, a woman who, like her husband, has no love for home and hearth nor for her only son. Tristan hates to leave the only family who has ever cared for him, but he sets out for home only to be accosted by two highwaymen, who rob him, and leave him for dead. Fortunately, the vicar and his wife care for him. They notify Anna's parents, who come for him in no time and nurse him back to health.

When he is finally able to make the trip home to Bath, he finds something amiss. The account books have been juggled, and when he tries to get to the bottom of it, he finds himself the target of bullets several times. Someone is trying to kill him. But why? And does that mean that his father's death could be murder. The excitement really begins when the whole family gets into the act to help trap his assailant, proving to Tristan beyond a shadow of a doubt who his real family is. Will he and Anna be able to overcome her first bad impressions of him and find love?

For those fond of Regency romances, this is a heartwarmer. The characters are realistic, and winning, and the story is a lovely might-have-been. Choose this one and curl up under an afghan with some hot chocolate in front of a crackling fire. You won't be sorry.