This HaBO request is from Anonymous and they’re looking for a Regency romance:
I read this book in the last year and I cannot for the life of me figure out what it was!
It’s a Regency; I doubt it’s more than 10 years old.
The scene I remember is a sex scene where they end up against a door in the main part of the house and the door rattles. There are other people in the house at the time that take this as a sign that the hero has reformed and must actually be into the heroine. I remember the heroine had long hair that the hero finds super sexy. I think the general story is about a couple who end up married for convenience reasons and then figure out how to love each other along the way, because those are my favourite, but I could be totally wrong.
Who knows this one?
I seem to remember there being a door scene in The Captive by Grace Burrowes and, if I’m thinking of the right book, the hero does sort of fixate on her long blonde hair?
The door-banging sounds like “Bewitching” by Jill Barnett, but the rose petals falling next are an important element.
Is it possibly Confessions from an Arranged Marriage by Miranda Neville? I don’t have my copy on hand to check, but that sounds familiar.
Man, this is such a familiar trope that I can think of several historicals of the period it could fit in! It definitely happens in Bewitching, and at least several Catherine Coulters (especially the hair fetish stuff).
There’s a scene like this in one of Julia Quinn’s Smith-Smythe books, but I can’t remember which one.
It could be The Courtesan’s Daughter by Claudia Dain, in which the heroine and her groom consummate their marriage in the dining room, while all the guests are in the other room.
On my! This could be so many books. My vote though is for: Along Came a Duke by Elizabeth Boyle, published in 2012. Here is summary: The Duke of Preston has ruined more young ladies than can be tolerated by Society, which turns its collective back to him and his family. In order to regain their respectability, his aunt insists he takes a bride. What Preston never imagines is that he will fall in love with the most unlikely of ladies – Miss Tabitha Timmons, a vicar’s daughter who is cursed in love and vows never to marry. Now it is up to the notorious duke to change her mind.
Whatever it is, I want to read it!
Another vote for Bewitching! The hero’s friends have a conversation with him afterwards where they let him know they couldn’t help but overhear and conclude he must be into her. They more or less have a marriage of convenience IIRC or he marries her on a whim or something like that. And I seem to remember him going on about her hair. I agree with the previous poster that it would seem more likely you’d remember the rose petals, but then what we remember from books is always odd!
Oh my, my first HABO. I think this is Sarah MacLean, a Rogue By Any Other Name. Childhood friends, the hero kidnaps the heroine, compromising her reputation and insisting they marry. Why? Part of her dowry is his ancestral lands. There is a scene post marriage, when they attend a society dinner and make out in a hallway. His scoundrel reputation is quickly forgotten as he shows such amorous devotion to his new bride.
The book was published a while ago, but I came across it in a daily deal or some such quite recently
Perhaps Her Christmas Earl by Anna Campbell?
Her Christmas Earl is a great book, I love it! That could be it, although it’s not exactly right. I think they were accidentally locked into a small dressing room or closet together, they were not against a door. And I don’t remember if they actually made love there, because they were strangers at the time. But I totally recommend reading it! Campbell’s holiday novellas are sweet and sexy and not as angsty as her long novels.