Lord Heartless by Barbara Metzger

I am currently on a Barbara Metzger kick and have just finished Lord Heartless on my IPad.  I had been wanting to read this book for years, but the used copies were always a little pricey for me.  This is one of the reasons I broke down and started reading ebooks, but that subject is best left for another time.

Anyhow, this is a cute, well-written book that is completely in style with the author's early books.  Lesley, Viscount Hartleigh, is another great beta hero.  I'm beginning to think that Barbara Metzger is the best at writing these types of heroes.  Lesley is a typical, young lord-about-town who has taken residence in a run-down house on a respectable street in order to escape his step-mother and her family.  Unfortunately for the neighbors, he has also brought his very disreputable dog and manservant.  Now Lesley isn't a Saint by any sense of the word.  He regularly drinks, gambles and intermingles with the ladies.  In fact, it is some of this intermingling which results in a baby being deposited on his doorstep one morning.  

This is where our heroine enters the story.  Mrs. Kane is a widowed housekeeper a few doors down from the Viscount.  She also has a young daughter who as Lesley puts it "seemed happy and healthy and devoted to her mother.  That was enough recommendation for the desperate peer".  Lesley takes the baby to Mrs. Kane and convinces her to help.  Now Mrs. Kane has all sorts of trouble herself including being cheated out of an inheritance, her long-thought dead disreputable husband coming back to life, and her growing attraction to the completely impossible Viscount.

The resulting story is a fun read with the colorful secondary characters that always show up in a Barbara Metzger novel.  The dialogue is perfect and believable, the plot moves along a a good pace, the characters act and react as they should to stay in character, and the ending is completely believable.  What more could a regency romance junkie ask for???  I loved that Lesley reminded me so much of my brothers - good, decent men who are just a tad bit intimidated and exasperated with women.  I often say that the hero almost always will make or break the plot for me and this is no exception.  Mrs. Kane is a fine heroine, but it is her interactions with the Viscount that had me turning the pages (or swiping the screen in this case).

This is definitely a four star story and well-worth the $3.99.  In fact, if I could have found it for twice as much in paperback, I would have paid it.