In 1809 Rose Davenport almost dies of chicken pox and fever. But she recovers and is told she is marrying, for a gentleman desires her dowry. Aged seventeen and unpresented at Court, she has no say in her life and accepts that her father is making a safe match for her. But the young man who offers for her hand, trying to ignore her blemishes, resents having to marry to save his family's estates.

A miserable wedding and honeymoon follows for Rose, whose shorn hair and emaciated figure give her no confidence and don't flatter her to her new husband. Only her piano playing excels. Gilbert, a Viscount, had hoped to marry his young sweetheart and is dreadfully disappointed by having to do his duty. The breakdown of communication leads to Gil's riding back to London and leaving Rose ensconced at his Northumberland house, where she remains unvisited for the next five years.

Bored and regretful, Rose has become a true steward of the estate, and now takes matters into her own hands. She travels to London and stays with a lady friend, and meets Gil at a masked ball. By now she has heard that he has had one mistress after another, and she entices him to betray his wife one more time. He has no idea who she is, but after a night of passion with a voluptuous beauty he does know that he wants to see more of her. She has vanished however, and Gil cannot find her. The vicious gossip mill is in full swing and Rose wonders if she should set Gil free....

A nicely toned romance, UNFORGIVABLE shines a spotlight on the role of women at this time, as the carriers of wealth without permission to be women of substance in their own right. Little is said about the lower classes even when Rose is improving their circumstances on the estate; what surprised me more was that nothing was said of the Napoleonic wars, when both Gil and his younger brother would surely have been joining some regiment and needing heirs in case they were killed in battle. Life was not all balls and card parties at this time. Joanna Chambers has done her research into the lives of wealthy women during this period, but I did find it one-sided. The romance is ultimately a positive story which will endear it to ugly ducklings everywhere.

Book Summary

Gil Truman has eyes only for the beautiful Tilly—until he is forced to marry plain, sickly Rose Davenport to reclaim the lands his father foolishly gambled away. After a disastrous wedding night tainted with his bitterness, he deposits Rose at his remote Northumbrian estate, soothing his guilt with the thought that she need never lay eyes on him again. Five years after the mortifying wedding night that destroyed all her romantic fantasies, Rose is fed up with hearing second- and third-hand reports of Gil’s philandering ways. She is no longer the shy, homely girl he left behind, but a strong, confident woman who knows how to run an estate. And knows what she wants—her husband, back in their marriage bed. Gil doesn’t recognize the bold, flirtatious woman he meets at a ball, with or without her mask. Yet he is bewitched and besotted, and their night together is the most passionate he has ever known. But when he confesses his sins to the beautiful stranger, the truth rips open the old wounds of their blighted history. Threatening any hope of a future together.