This HaBO is from S., who is looking for this historical romance. Content warning, ahoy:
Need help finding a book title for historical romance novel, I read the book around the early 2000s:
Young woman’s father dies (was a vicar or something religious I think, I remember she is very sheltered, naive and modest) but he secured a position for her as a governess.
Her employer, the hero, is a man that was hurt and betrayed by a former love (can’t quite remember what happened—maybe a former wife that had an affair and then died?) but he falls in love with the governess, especially as he learns she is honest and trustworthy.
There is another woman living in the house (I want to say it’s the employer’s step sister, or some kind of relation) who is plotting to ruin him. She’s jealous of the pretty new governess. She has a lover (some kind of servant) that helps her with her schemes. One scheme involved her throwing a party but hiring 2 bad guys to grab and attack/attempt to rape the governess during the party but the hero comes upon them and is able to fight them off.
Another scene, the governess is horseback riding when something happens (it’s raining and the horse slips a shoe—something like that) and she has to ride back on the same horse with the hero.
Hero and governess eventually fall in love and get married.
It’s driving me crazy!
Can we HaBO?
Maybe A Governess for the Brooding Duke by Bridget Barton ? (The reviews on that don’t mention the “oh no only one horse” trope )
Hero and governess eventually fall in love and get married.
Reader, I married him.
n/m, I’ll leave quietly.
@Louise If you are referring to very heavy Rebecca vibes I was thinking the same thing.
This put me in mind if MRS. DREW PLAYS HER HAND by Carla Kelly, but I don’t think all the details quite match —she’s the widow of a vicar as I recall and I don’t remember an evil sister—but betrayal, the attack and the only one horse bit ring true.
@Dee
“Reader, I married him” is from Jane Eyre.
Reminds me of Kasey Michaels Legacy of the Rose, which it probably is not.
@Denise
My mistake. Sorry.
@Dee:
Yup, I got the distinct impression that 10 seconds after posting, you were staring in horror at your fingers wondering “Where the ### did you get ‘Rebecca’ from?” and lamenting the lack of an Edit function.