Help A Bitch Out

HaBO: Ah, Old Skool Romance

Jill asks for your help in finding this old skool romance:

This is driving me nuts!! I cannot remember the title or characters names,
here is the plot…kind of. A girl maybe 17-18 years old is living in a
brothel( I can’t remember why she there). She is something of a maid.
She’s told that if she doesn’t start “working” like the other girls,
she’s gotta go. An older man comes in looking for a “girl” for his
grandson that is returning from sea (I think), he see’s this maid and picks
her, she thinks she’s going to be a governess for a child, unbeknown to her
that she’s been “bought” for a night.

She is taken to a mansion and shown
to “her” room. Sometime in the night the grown grandson shows up, finds a
girl in his room, rapes her and falls asleep. He wakes up the next morning
and realizes she was a virgin. I don’t remember if he keeps her there with
him or she goes back to the brothel, but I do remember her brother at some
point shows up, as it turns out he is old friends with the rapist, raises
hell and the poor girl and asshole marry. I think she becomes pregnant and I
remember Lord Byron had a cameo it this book. I think the guy in this book
is titled , maybe an heir to a duke?

Please help!! I read this book 15 years ago and would love to read it again.
I have searched the net and used book stores for 5 years now, with no luck
:(.

I am going to go out on a limb and guess that the cover might possible feature hot pink. Or teal. Or both! Anyone recognize this one?

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  1. Lyssa says:

    It sounds very much like a novel by Liz Carlyle (I swear that is who wrote it)  featured a woman who tries to throw herself from a bridge, and the twin brother of the rapist convinces her not to…and marries her. After convincing her that he is the attacker, which is revealed later on as a lie when the brother returns. He had attacked her not out of passion but because he was drunk, and afraid that his secret would be outed. (He was gay.) I am looking for the name right now…

    spamword clearly89- I could clearly see the name..if I had not read 89 books with similar plots

  2. Lindsay says:

    No guesses on the original request, but I think the book Lyssa describes is An Arranged Marriage by Jo Beverley.

  3. Kay Webb Harrison says:

    Definitely NOT the Jo Beverley book. The heroine’s brother sets her up to be raped by a drunken duke, twin brother of hero Nicholas, leader of the Rogues, who marries the heroine to get his brother out of the jam. She was NEVER a maid in a brothel.
    Unfortunately, I don’t know which book it IS.

    Kay

  4. EL says:

    @Kay Webb Harrison: Lindsay is right.  It was a An Arranged Marriage.  That was the first Jo Beverley book I read and almost stopped her after that.  Almost.  Don’t want to go off topic on book.

    Not sure on the name of the HaBO book.  Sounds familiar.  Probably have it along with 20 others with similar plots..in a box.

    “part37”: Only on part 13 of Rouges series. Not sure if I can afford all 60.  Donations welcome.

  5. dreadpiraterachel says:

    Well, that sounds fairly horrifying. I think I’ll go boil my brain and thank my stars that my husband is a thoughtful, caring non-rapist.

    Faith28: I’d have lost faith in the romance genre if the first 28 books I read had plots like this.

  6. willaful says:

    Just subscribing because I wanna know what it turns out to be.

  7. Mad says:

    This is THE BARGAIN by Veronica Sattler. I have this one in my keepers because I just *love* the scene when the brother realizes the “woman” his friend had been complaining about a few pages before turns out to be his long long sister. His “Your Grace, I think I may have to kill you.” was priceless given the “advice” the brother gave to the hero, not knowing he was talking about his sister.

    Blurb is below—

    THE DUKE OF RAVENSFORD
    The aging nobleman had decided that the only thing his grandson needed to complete his education was a woman with a reputation, and he would provide one…

    ASHLEIGH SINCLAIR
    An orphaned kitchen maid in an English brothel, she was tricked into taking the post as a “governess” to the duke’s grandson…

    LORD BRETT WESTMONT
    Handsome and heartless, Brett had known every kind of woman but one, and now his grandfather had seen to it that his collection was complete… All were caught in a deception that could cost a young woman her virtue, and a notorious rake his heart…

  8. Mad says:

    Wanted to share a link to the cover because didn’t someone mention pink? *g*

    http://fictiondb.com/author/veronica-sattler~the-bargain~32306~b.htm

  9. @Mad:  Haha!  Everyone knows that rape is okay as long as it’s on a bed of pink roses!  Teh gurlz like pink!

  10. Polly says:

    Ashleigh and Brett? I don’t know if I could get past those names.

  11. EL says:

    @Mad:  Wow.  That’s a really, really, pinkass’d cover. I don’t think I read that one.  Was there really a bargain?

    “you49”:  Here’s the 48th reason for you to backoff.  “If you touch me again my lord, I’ll kick your ballocks up to your heir apparent line!”

  12. Liz says:

    Ashleigh and Brett? I don’t know if I could get past those names.

    Would a woman in an historical have spelled her name Asleigh?  It doesn’t seem old fashioned.

    “you49”:  Here’s the 48th reason for you to backoff.  “If you touch me again my lord, I’ll kick your ballocks up to your heir apparent line!”

    how about: “If you touch me again my lord, I’ll Lorena Bobbit your manhood.  And you know that they won’t be able to reattach it with our olde medicines. No pornos for you, my lord.”

  13. EL says:

    @Liz lol.  You spelled Lorena wrong.  It’s Lorenaeigh, sister of Ashleigh.  😉

  14. Liz says:

    @El, I’ll have to remember that for next time.

  15. AgTigress says:

    Would a woman in an historical have spelled her name Asleigh?  It doesn’t seem old fashioned.

    No. Nor would she have been named ‘Ashley’ at all, regardless of spelling, because it was a man’s name.  I suspect that ‘Ashley’ became feminine in American English in part through its slight resemblance to the Irish name Aislin (many different spellings), which is much better known in the USA, owing to Irish immigration, than in England.  Though why Meredith, Sidney and all the rest became feminine in AE is anyone’s guess.

    Characters with ‘fancy’ modern names are always the first warning signal that an historical novel is sloppily researched.  As my late, dear friend Talpianna used to say, ‘If the daughter of the Viking eorl is named ‘Kimberley’, you know there’s a problem…’

  16. Kilian Metcalf says:

    Though why Meredith, Sidney and all the rest became feminine in AE is anyone’s guess.

    Probably for the same reason Shirley, Beverly, Sydney and Phyllis did.  We name our babies without any regard to the name’s history or associations. “Oooo, that sounds pretty, think I’ll saddle my daughter with a strange name, so she’ll be different.”

    I did know a man named Shirley; he was a newscaster in 1960’s Arizona – Shirley Clum.

    Guess I’m throwing stones in a glass house, but in defense of my parents, I chose Kilian as an adult, and I knew it was a man’s name at the time.  They named me Vicki.

  17. Kilian Metcalf says:

    Though why Meredith, Sidney and all the rest became feminine in AE is anyone’s guess.

    Probably for the same reason Shirley, Beverly, Sydney and Phyllis did.  We name our babies without any regard to the name’s history or associations. “Oooo, that sounds pretty, think I’ll saddle my daughter with a strange name, so she’ll be different.”

    I did know a man named Shirley; he was a newscaster in 1960’s Arizona – Shirley Clum.

    Guess I’m throwing stones in a glass house, but in defense of my parents, I chose Kilian as an adult, and I knew it was a man’s name at the time.  They named me Vicki.

  18. Kilian Metcalf says:

    Though why Meredith, Sidney and all the rest became feminine in AE is anyone’s guess.

    Probably for the same reason Shirley, Beverly, Sydney and Phyllis did.  We name our babies without any regard to the name’s history or associations. “Oooo, that sounds pretty, think I’ll saddle my daughter with a strange name, so she’ll be different.”

    I did know a man named Shirley; he was a newscaster in 1960’s Arizona – Shirley Clum.

    Guess I’m throwing stones in a glass house, but in defense of my parents, I chose Kilian as an adult, and I knew it was a man’s name at the time.  They named me Vicki.

  19. Kilian Metcalf says:

    Though why Meredith, Sidney and all the rest became feminine in AE is anyone’s guess.

    Probably for the same reason Shirley, Beverly, Sydney and Phyllis did.  We name our babies without any regard to the name’s history or associations. “Oooo, that sounds pretty, think I’ll saddle my daughter with a strange name, so she’ll be different.”

    I did know a man named Shirley; he was a newscaster in 1960’s Arizona – Shirley Clum.

    Guess I’m throwing stones in a glass house, but in defense of my parents, I chose Kilian as an adult, and I knew it was a man’s name at the time.  They named me Vicki.

  20. Deb says:

    “Characters with ‘fancy’ modern names are always the first warning signal that an historical novel is sloppily researched.  As my late, dear friend Talpianna used to say, ‘If the daughter of the Viking eorl is named ‘Kimberley’, you know there’s a problem…’ “

    Amen, AgTigress!  I posted before about giving up on a historical romance with a heroine named Skylar.  Really, Skylar?  In Regency England?  I think not. 

    On the other hand, I recently read Hallie Rubenhold’s THE LADY IN RED, a non-fiction book about a scandalous 18th-century divorce (was there any other kind?) and the lady in question had the given name of Seymour.  I would have liked Rubenhold to have discussed why, in an era of Marys, Elizabeths, Annes, Amelias, and Harrietts, Seymour was given such a name, but sadly it was shrugged off in a sentence of the “no one knows why…” variety.

    Spam filter:  been58…well, not quite yet I haven’t been.

  21. MeganB says:

    Just once, I want the heroine’s sister to show up and kick the hero’s ass into marrying her (the heroine, not the sister).

    Or maybe the heroine’s grandma could show up and shame him into it.  It would be cool if she was twisting his ear like they do on sitcoms, leading him to the alter.

  22. Kilian Metcalf says:

    @Deb

    Then there was the time I was pulled up by reading about a character named Jacquetta in a Philippa Gregory novel.  Jacquetta!  Really?  Really, did a google search, and sure enough, she was an actual historical character.  Who knew?  Guess people liked to play around with names in the 15th century as much as they do today.

  23. Kilian Metcalf says:

    @Deb

    Then there was the time I was pulled up by reading about a character named Jacquetta in a Philippa Gregory novel.  Jacquetta!  Really?  Really, did a google search, and sure enough, she was an actual historical character.  Who knew?  Guess people liked to play around with names in the 15th century as much as they do today.

  24. Kilian Metcalf says:

    @Deb

    Then there was the time I was pulled up by reading about a character named Jacquetta in a Philippa Gregory novel.  Jacquetta!  Really?  Really, did a google search, and sure enough, she was an actual historical character.  Who knew?  Guess people liked to play around with names in the 15th century as much as they do today.

  25. Kilian Metcalf says:

    @Deb

    Then there was the time I was pulled up by reading about a character named Jacquetta in a Philippa Gregory novel.  Jacquetta!  Really?  Really, did a google search, and sure enough, she was an actual historical character.  Who knew?  Guess people liked to play around with names in the 15th century as much as they do today.

  26. AgTigress says:

    It isn’t all that difficult these days, with modern internet resources, to check on the appropriateness of forenames.  There are always some surprises:  ‘Tiffany’, as a nickname for ‘Theophania’, sounds recent, but was certainly in use in the Regency period.  And there is always the possibility of family names (often surnames used as forenames and middle names) which were out of the ordinary in their own time. 

    But on the whole, the use of surnames or masculine forenames as given names for females was a no-no till very recent times.  A 19th-century English parent would no sooner call his daughter ‘Meredith’ or ‘Mackenzie’ (both non-English anyway) than he would call his son ‘Caroline’.

  27. Dusk says:

    “Oooo, that sounds pretty, think I’ll saddle my daughter with a strange name, so she’ll be different.”

    People like these (my parents included… thanks mom >.

    <) should not be allowed to name their kids.. Or the parents of a BOY named Stephenie (actually goes to my school.. yes it is spelled like that >

    .<

  28. Suze says:

    Oh, spelling of names.  I blame Cyndi Lauper for the fact that I can no longer confidently spell a person’s name by guess.  Jane?  Nope.  Jayne?  Nope.  Jain?  Nope.  Jaen?  Nope.

    I have seen:

    – Tiffannee
    – Ashleigh, Emileigh, Kelleigh, etc.
    – Christol, Krystal, Khrystahl, etc.

    and a poor, unfortunate young man named Aeryk.

    I give up.  Everyone has the right to spell their names any way they choose, but if they get too cutesy, they lose the right to be offended when people spell their names wrong.

    Harumph.  Curmudgeon out.

  29. Diana says:

    Oh, Suze.  I agree.  I actually have a great weird name story, if you’ll bear with me:

    I was working as a teacher intern at an elementary school.  The thing is, you’d rotate classes and go to teach blah blah.  Anyway, I was working with a new set of kids on Parent-Teacher, calling out roll.

    Everything was cool until I came on the name—L-A

    I called out, “LA?”  From the back of the room, this lady called out, really indignantly, “No, it’s LADASHA.  The dash isn’t silent!”

    LOL forever, poor kid.

  30. Diana says:

    That would be Parent-Teacher *Night, just for clarification.

  31. allison says:

    On the strange and crazy names front, a friend of mine was working as a substitute teacher in a school district. As she was taking roll, she came upon “Shithead Adams”. No joke. There was someone in the class named Shithead. So she skips the name, a very smart decision, and continues roll. When she’s done with all the other names, she asks if she missed anyone. A very cute little girl in the back row said that her name was “shi-theeeeed”.

    So there’s a little girl out there in the world and her name is Shithead.

    captcha: trouble73. Oh, I’m quite certain she’ll have more than 73 instances of trouble with that name.

  32. Gwynnyd says:

    I knew a Mar10Z (mar-ten-zee) once.  And I always felt sorry for the sweet young thing who took my parking money, whose badge read “Latrina.”  And the guy named “Malice,” pronounced just the way it looks, the same word as the “desire to inflict injury, harm, or suffering on another.”

    Who could look at a sweet, little, brand-new baby face and say, “I think I’ll name him Malice.”?

    And to drag this kicking and screaming back on topic, there was the boy whose mom called him, “goo – ey” because she’d seen the name in a romance novel and thought it was great.  “Goo – ey” – spelled, of course, “Guy.

  33. Melissa says:

    All of this name stuff makes the names I almost ended up with not so bad. First, there was Frithilde, after my grandmother.  I’m not sure I would have wanted to be saddled with that name, even if we had stayed in Germany.  Second, there was Roxanne – not so bad, unless you consider that the inspiration for the name came from the song about a hooker.  My mom swears she had no idea that’s what the song was about.  I don’t know how good her English was back then, so I’m not sure whether I should believe her, but I prefer to think she wouldn’t name her daughter after a prostitute.

    As for the romance mentioned in the original post – if that’s the kind of thing I had read when I first started reading romance, I’m not sure I would have continued with the genre. How do you make a guy like that anything but a complete bastard?

  34. redcrow says:

    there was Roxanne – not so bad, unless you consider that the inspiration for the name came from the song about a hooker.

    Um, no. No, no, no. The name existed long before the song.

  35. redcrow says:

    Sorry, I misread you. I retract my objections.

  36. Deb says:

    One more comment about names:  The day after the birth of her baby, my friend had to complete the birth certificate and social security paperwork.  The hospital rep kept stressing to her how important it was to spell the baby’s name correctly and make sure everything looked right.  Because my friend was naming her baby “Emily,” she thought the rep’s vigilance about correct spelling was rather odd.  Finally the rep confessed that a few days before they had processed a birth certificate for a child named “Asshole”—the mother said it should be pronounced “Ash-oh-lay.”

    So Shithead, meet Asshole.

  37. lizw65 says:

    So Shithead, meet Asshole.

    Maybe those two can get together and start a support group for people with awful names.  If you can stand a little more on the subject:  when I was recovering from surgery a few months ago, my cousin sent me some light reading—a book titled Morecock, Fartwell, and Hoare, subtitled A Collection of Unfortunate but True Names.  All are from the British Isles; most are nineteenth century or earlier, and include such gems as Sargassa, Spearmint, Cuntliffe, Prick, and Freak.  While I wouldn’t recommend it as a source for naming your protagonists (or children, for that matter) I could certainly picture a Mad Parrott or Pete Moss as the Plucky Comic Relief.

    Spamword:  figure69.  Ha!

  38. helen says:

    Having been a teacher (high school and college) for almost 20 years I have seen some doozies. I had twins once Alpha and Omega (only the one born first was Omega, last was Alpha), in the same class I had an Athena (which was strange only because of Alpha and Omega, I often wondered if the parents of that class were channeling for the Gods). I have had a Placenta (yes, I kid you not Placenta), a Bay-Bay, Solvent and a Pinto.

  39. bookoholic says:

    I really must ask – why in heavens’ name would you possibly want to read a book like that AGAIN??? Once wasn’t traumatic enough?
    On the other hand, i admit that reading some of the comments gave me some interesting ideas for future reads, so i guess I’m benefiting from your(mistifying) search. Thanks!

  40. Kristina says:

    @ Helen   those names are outrageous!!  I have one to add though.  There was a little precocious (sp?) boy in a doctor’s office waiting room.  When the mom and boy went into the office the lady next to me asked me if I knew the little boys name?  I of course said no.  She then told me his name was Baby Jesus.  I of course did NOT believe her and when the mom and kid came out again and took a seat I asked her the kids name.  She confirmed it!!!  The kid’s name was really Baby Jesus!!  Poor thing.  The parents need to be locked up when they do stuff like that to a kid!!

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