Eugenie Belmont is a respectable young lady from a somewhat shady family whose main claim to fame is the fact that their ancestress was the mistress of a king. Her father and brothers drive her nuts with their schemes and antics; her mother is ineffectual, at best, at least in preventing the family's slide into mediocrity. But Eugenie is their great hope; she's been to Miss Debenham's Finishing School. Certainly she can snag herself a peer who will solve her family's financial problems, right? Caught up in the conversation with others in the school's Husband Hunters' Club, she aims into the stratosphere when she vows to catch the Duke of Somerton in her marriage net. The only problem is that she's barely met him...and he's not really all that pleasant to deal with.

As a young man, Sinclair St. John was crushed when his autocratic mother shattered his dreams of becoming an artist because, in her opinion, it wasn't an appropriate pursuit for a member of the nobility. Now, years later, as the Duke of Somerton, he is as proper, staid and stuffy as a man in his position can be, that is, until he comes across the most delightfully tempting hoyden, Eugenie Belmont. Eugenie makes him forget that he's supposed to be regal and boring. Instead, she makes him want to shirk his responsibilities and bed her immediately (and often). After a run-in with a goat, a hasty trip north to reclaim his "abducted" sister and some heated glances (and more) with the lovely Eugenie, Sinclair begins to question when and why life stopped being fun...and why the light seems to go out of his life when Eugenie leaves the room.

To Pleasure a Duke is a somewhat madcap romp through attraction, passion and meeting the expectations of familial and peer pressure. Sinclair is certainly a product of his class, and he's not quite sure he really likes the man he's become, but hides his self-doubt behind a façade of haughty sneering. I disliked him intensely upon first mention, but he grew on me as the book progressed. Eugenie is a good girl caught up in a bad situation, chiefly that her mouth ran away with her and she claimed to be close to snagging a duke, but she must also overcome the fact that her father is an unprincipled charlatan. There are lots of flashes of humor here, particularly the aforementioned goat that causes all the trouble, but the book's plot felt a bit disjointed in places and lagged in others. I loved these characters, but didn't always like the circumstances in which the author placed them. I did, however, enjoy the ending thoroughly, so this book earns Four Angels.

Reviewed by: Michelle B.