Portrait of My Heart is wickedly funny, wickedly sexy, and just downright wicked. It is a hybrid, strangely enough, of a screwball comedy and a black comedy. Through witty writing, author Patricia Cabot has created a selfish and immoral hero but made him lovable from the start.

Okay, she also has given Jeremy, Duke of Rawlings, a last name that is the same as his title, an historical faux paux that will likely bother the reader who insists on accuracy in the use of titles. She also refers to heroine Maggie’s bountiful breasts as being the size of cantaloupes, a fairly daunting prospect. And, if Jeremy had simply uttered those three small words far earlier in the story, it would have made for a far shorter book. But then again, had he done so, the reader would not have been taken for such a merry ride.

When we meet Jeremy, he has been sent down from Oxford, the third college to expel him. Seems he killed a man in a duel after the man was bothered by the fact that Jerry had sullied his sister. Jerry doesn’t understand the fuss, frankly, but looks forward to going home, even though his uncle and aunt (whose story is told in Where Roses Grow Wild, a book I can’t wait to read) are angry about his latest exploit.

When we meet Maggie, she is seventeen, a talented painter whose family doesn’t understand her need to create – why doesn’t she want to marry and have a family like her sister Anne? When we meet Maggie and Jeremy together, she falls out of a tree on top of him. Why? Because since they were children she’s always tortured him. Well, it’s been five years since she’s last seen him, and, shockingly enough, he’s now taller than she. And, he’s gorgeous. For his part, Jerry is shocked that now she’s gorgeous. He devises a delicious idea for taking his revenge upon her for always beating him up in their youth when she was bigger than he. He’ll take her into the barn and seduce her.

At their first kiss, the passion flames. He can’t believe how hot he is, and she can’t believe how hot she is, which makes her angry enough to wallop him upside the head. He can’t believe she’s turning him down because that’s no woman has ever done that before. He decides she must be the woman for him and asks that she marry him. Convinced she’s not duchess material and that he has no true feelings for her, she turns him down. He joins Queen Victoria’s service and goes off to India in an effort to make himself good enough for Maggie. She is sent to Paris to study art, which is what she wanted all along.

It’s now five years hence. Maggie is engaged to a French gallery owner and Jeremy returns from India, a triumphant hero gifted with the Star of Jaipur. He’s come back for Maggie, although she doesn’t know it. And she doesn’t know that the Star of Jaipur is a sapphire because society has been led to believe the Star is actually a beautiful Princess.

This is the set up for what is one of the most rollicking romances I’ve read in a long time. It’s bawdy, with multiple and lengthy love scenes. It’s hysterically funny at nearly every turn, but it’s darkly funny. Maggie’s French girlfriend Berangere is as devious as Jeremy, and, believe me, he’s wonderfully devious. Between Berangere’s skewed take on things, the actions involving the Indian Princess, and the wonderful ways in which Jeremy lusts after Maggie, readers will be laughing non-stop when they aren’t feeling that lust themselves. And, oh yeah, there’s Jeremy’s one-legged majordomo too.

There is some underlying poignancy in Maggie’s current state – her family has disowned her for following her artistic muse. But Cabot even manages to turn this into comedy when Jerry follows some of Berangere’s advice. The humor is three-fold, based first on Maggie’s not realizing that Jerry truly loves her, and second, on the odd outcomes of Jerry’s attempts to do the right thing. But it also comes out of Jerry’s willingness to do whatever he wants to in order to win Maggie, including drugging her maid with opium. I could easily have become exasperated by the length of time it takes for Maggie to realize Jerry’s true feelings, but the zesty writing prevents this, although others may think the author went a bit too far.

If you have found yourself in a romance reading rut and can live with a hero who is an unrepentant rake, I recommend Portrait of My Heart. At every turn, there will be laughter, love, and joy.