Before reading Rules of Surrender, I’d have never thought it possible to enjoy a “Sheik on the Thames” romance. And a romance where a bodice is actually ripped? Hah! Somehow, though, Christina Dodd managed to create a fast-paced, darkly humorous romance featuring a hero many may find impossible to like. As for this reviewer, what can I say? Although I think the author’s characterization of the hero was inconsistent, I did like him, and I liked the book.

When Lady Charlotte Dalrumple is hired as governess for the grandchildren of Adorna, Viscountess Ruskin, she hopes this will be a long-term engagement which will allow her some measure of peace and the chance for the scandal surrounding her name to disappear. What she doesn’t count on is the children’s father – Lord Wynter Ruskin. It’s not his blond good looks and buff bod that concern her; it’s his bare feet, his Pasha-style clothing, his manner of speech, and his barbaric bemusement at English ways of the world. While he presents himself as a barbarian lacking in wits and grace, he’s got a mind like a steel trap, and he’s got the number of most everyone he meets.

Wynter, you see, ran away from home at the age of 15 when his father died. He was eventually sold into slavery to a Bedoin chieftan. He married and fathered two children before the death of his wife. Now he’s home, looking for an embezzler in the family business, and his mother is looking for a woman suitable for marriage to her son. While Adorna really does want Charlotte to teach her grandchildren, she also wants Charlotte to tutor her son as an English gentleman. Wynter will thwart all their plans, for once he sees Charlotte, he knows he wants her for his wife. Unfortunately, Wynter does not believe in love, for even though his parents loved one another, his Bedoin “father” taught him that men do not love women.

Charlotte will have none of it. She isn’t out for love; all she wants is to do her job and improve her reputation. What family she had cast her out after the unfair scandal. While she quickly comes to love Wynter’s children, she fights against loving Wynter, and even when she realizes she does love him, she fights against giving that love. For Charlotte realizes how women in English society are compartmentalized, and she would rather be free, lonely, and poor than stuck in a box marked “wife.” And, she would rather not share her love at all than love a man who will not lose control of any situation.

Yes, the love scenes were of the forced variety, but the reader is privy to what Charlotte was experiencing, even if Wynter was not. Was I swayed by the fact that she felt alive and excited? Perhaps. Or was it because she was smiling? Maybe. It might have been because her real frustration during the consummation scene was that Wynter wasn’t as driven out of control by passion as she was – at least until she got the upper hand, so to speak. Anyone who has ever been made love to by a man so intent on giving pleasure that he won’t give in to his own passions will know, in some small way, what Charlotte experienced.

There are lots of moments of wit in Rules of Surrender, and some terrific characters – the two children, Adorna, and the man she comes to love – all contribute to the story. The sub-plots involving a ghost and embezzlement are not difficult to figure out once you get into the heads of these characters, but that’s all part of the fun. Some of the flaws others have found in this book are things I actually enjoyed, such as Wynter’s continually referring to Charlotte as “Lady Miss Charlotte.” Wynter, after all, is his mother’s son. Both have wicked senses of humor, and both throw people off their intelligence by doing and saying things that society considers “wrong.”

Characters from earlier books make an appearance here as well, including the leads from That Scandalous Evening and The Runaway Princess. These characters do not overshadow Charlotte and Wynter – I doubt any characters could do this, with the exception of Adorna, whose role in this book is delightful.

Rules of Surrender is flawed however, by an inconsistency in Wynter’s characterization. While it’s true that his years in the desert taught him many things, he was nearly a full-grown man when he ran away from home. He saw while growing up that a man can love a woman. It is therefore inconsistent that what he saw and what he learned in his earlier life should have been completely and utterly overshadowed by what he learned as a Bedouin. Of course, things come full circle in this story – it is his children who show him the truth of the matter.

If you did not enjoy A Well Pleasured Lady, it’s doubtful you will enjoy this book. If you did enjoy that previous effort, you might like this one, although it’s not as good. But, if you can handle a difficult man such as Wynter, you’re apt to come to care for him – after all, Lady Miss Charlotte did.