Alexander "Alec" Sinclair, Earl of St. James, is a rake. But he's more than that--he's a man of ACTION! Given the task of uncovering the men behind a plot to assassinate the prime minister, he's happy to slink about, wearing masks and desperately trying to deal with his copious daddy issues. Until he runs into the proper, innocent schoolmistress, Olivia Everett. She turns her nose up at him, not wanting anything to do with his scandalous ways.

The issue? Olivia's brother may have been involved in that assassination plot. On pain of her brother's life, Olivia agrees to help Alec. Only to be drawn to him, while hiding secrets of her own...

Oh, this book. I've never read an Anna Harrington before, and I'm very tempted to say that I'm going to give her another shot, because for so much of it, there was a lot for me to love. Alec wears a mask! Olivia recognizes him! Alec is in her room a lot! He sucks on her tits and gets a boner and she tries to hide it with a bonnet, which is really the only way bonnets should ever be used in these books. He makes her come twice against a tree!

But.... And oh, is there a but. I hate it when this happens. When a book is really fun and you think you're going to give it at least four stars, but then one legitimately horrendous thing happens and you're like "welp, there is really no way I can justify going above three".

So here's the deal, if you'd like to read more (fair warning). Olivia has had sex before. She obviously isn't going to go around advertising it, because society. But she's not a virgin. And after before mentioned coming against a tree situation (which did not involve penetrative sex) Alec is all "no, we must protect your precious flower" and Olivia is all "no worries, my flower has been plucked". Not once did she outwardly tell this man, from what I recall, that she was a virgin--though if she did that would be fine because society and misogyny and that's her fucking business.

He is PISSED. And it's all justified because his abusive father was a liar who pretended to be a morally upright prude while secretly fucking all over the place (and beating Alec for good measure) but this did not track for me. This is no babe in the woods, here. Alec has been in society for years and developed his own reputation, and he's fully aware of how important *technical* virginity was for proper young ladies, which is why he said he wouldn't fuck her. But once he finds out that Olivia has had a penis inside her (once!) he's like "oh my god, she's been lying to me, how could I trust her about anything, THIS LIAR!!!!"

And it did kill my lust for him very hard.

Of course he gets called on it, and of course they figure things out, but I never feel like he was sufficiently apologetic for slut shaming Olivia. Because it's all justified behind that "my daddy was a mean man who lied about his sex life among other things" story. And that didn't track. Additionally, Olivia did not have sex because she just wanted to. She had sex under very justifiable, very understandable circumstances that involved light pressure and didn't really have anything to do with her just wanting to fuck for fun. So it's like "poor Olivia, she is not a true slut, and thus we can absolve her of her sins".

That's.... concerning for me. Especially in 2022. I don't want to rate this book lower because the rest of it was very fun and I don't want to assume that this is par for the course when I haven't read anything else by this author. I want to give her another shot. But damn, that was a misstep of a plot point.

This book was provided for me by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.