The second book in this trilogy, Love Me Not, earned a B- from me and had one of the best endings I’d ever read. Deceive Me Not does not live up to its predecessor. There’s some good stuff going on here, but the behavior of the heroine is so difficult that the author simply lost me.

Lady Melissa Seymour is beautiful but painfully shy, and thought to be utterly stupid by the ton. After the death of her father years before, her mother, the iron-willed and catty Lady Arabella, has kept her under her thumb. While Melissa defies her mother in small ways, she mostly accepts her lot in life.

Bruce Palmerston, Viscount Channing, sees Melissa mostly as others do, but has noted glimpses of spine in her, especially when he had to use her to prevent her mother from hurting someone close to him. Because of his actions, Arabella despises Bruce, but Melissa has secretly loved him for years.

One night at a house party, Bruce thinks he is slipping into the dark bed of his mistress. Alas, it is really Melissa’s bed, and she welcomes him. When he discovers he’s been with a virgin, he proposes and is shocked when she turns him down. He is so intrigued by her that he sneaks into her bedroom nights later. After they share another bout of passion, he proposes again. Though she knows her mother will never let her have a normal life, she’d rather turn down the proposal than be with a man who doesn’t love her.

At the moment when Melissa explains to Bruce that she knows what her mother is up to, Bruce realizes she is no dumb cookie, and his lust begins to turn into love. Unfortunately, this is where the author lost me. Even though by the end of this book, Melissa has transformed herself into a confident woman, her actions at this point seemed silly. I kept asking myself, “Why would she turn down all this passion and a chance at happiness knowing that her mother will never let her grow/grow up?” And, since a baby is a possibility, how could allow the possibility of birthing a bastard?

The baby issue is the crux of the conflict because Bruce is a high-born bastard whose “father” had treated him horribly. The old earl plays an integral part in this book, as he did in Love Me Not, and when he gets involved with Melissa’s mother, things turn very ugly.

Bruce and Melissa spend the remainder of the book lusting, regretting, lusting some more, and being separated. I have a personal bias against romances where the hero and heroine are separated for much of the story, but their separation isn’t the only flaw at work here. The love scenes are wonderful, but my frustration level regarding Melissa was too great to enjoy them. She is simply too much the victim, of circumstance, and of her own making.

Bruce is an interesting hero – a rake through and through, who loves the one he’s with when he’s with them, and it is this that Melissa fears. Readers will want to shout, “Melissa, get over it already, and take what you’ve been given!” Of course, by the time Melissa realizes that for herself, circumstances intervene and another umpteen pages go by until she takes responsibility for her happiness and the conflicts are resolved.

As I indicated above, the love scenes are wonderful, and these two share some very poignant moments. The last few chapters go a long way toward redeeming the mid section of the book, and boost it into a C level grade. Without those final chapters, Deceive Me Not would have earned a grade of D. Had the author kept Bruce and Melissa together more often , and allowed Melissa to grow out of her victim status sooner, this could have been a good book.

As a reviewer, when I start to devise plots that might have worked better, I know a book is in trouble. This book is trouble. If you are a fan of this trilogy, you will probably want to read this book regardless. But I’m afraid you will be disappointed.