from our DIK review:I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading The Footman, and truthfully, I had my doubts after the first chapter.  A young and handsome footman, on his first day of work, is unable to curb his tongue after the daughter of the house, Lady Elinor Yarmouth, accidentally barrels into him and then insults him. Later that evening, at her engagement ball, Lady Elinor impulsively kisses the footman because she’s frustrated with her life and upcoming arranged marriage... Friends, I struggled with this premise right out of the gate.  (Honestly, it’s ridiculous).  Fortunately, LaViolette (aka Minerva Spencer) somehow transforms this opening chapter into a story I couldn’t put down and didn’t want to end.  Vengeance, redemption, and a second chance romance combine in this addictive and entertaining romance.Iain Vale, the bastard son of a Scottish laird and a whore, was a young, poor, inexperienced footman in a wealthy London household.  He’s in the wrong place at the wrong time when Lady Elinor Yarmouth spots him yawning at her engagement ball, and before he realizes what she’s about, she’s kissing him.  When her fiancé spots them, he nearly beats Iain to death before having him arrested and charged with rape.  He barely survives his time in jail (a stranger defends him from an attack by fellow inmates), before his uncle helps him escape by bribing a pair of guards.  Filthy and starving, with a bounty on his head, he boards a ship bound for America.  Fifteen years later, he’s returned to England as Stephen Worth, a wealthy banker from Boston, and he wants revenge on the people who casually ruined his life.  His first stop is Blackfriars, home to Lady Elinor Trentham.After that impulsive kiss, Lady Elinor watched helplessly as her fiancé, Edward Atwood, Earl of Trentham, nearly beat the innocent man to death and then coldly renegotiated his marriage contract with her father.  Alternately referring to her as a whore and a slut, he informs her he’s cancelled the wedding at St. George’s Church, and instead arranged for a special license.

“We shall spend one night in Trentham House before you are removed to Blackfriars, where I will return every month until you are breeding.”  His eyes flickered over her and he made no effort to hide his distaste.

The marriage, an agony marked by vicious abuse, rape, and multiple miscarriages, cured her of any romantic notions.  Now a widow living in the Dower House, Elinor is mostly free to live as she chooses with little interference from Charles Atwood, the loathsome, venal Fifth Earl of Trentham.  And despite her meagre jointure and reduced circumstances, she’s determined never to marry again.  Instead, after treating her own injuries for so many years, she’s studying to become a physician under the tutelage of the local doctor.When Charles introduces Elinor to Stephen Worth, explaining that the handsome stranger is interested in purchasing the estate, Elinor tries to quell her panic:

... the land was in bad enough condition, but the house itself would require a monstrous amount of money to repair and operate.

But it soon becomes clear that Mr. Worth is interested in Blackfriars - and her; he keeps showing up wherever she is.  Elinor doesn’t have time for his games or his flirting or her own attraction to him (which she valiantly tries to suppress), and she avoids him whenever possible.  His attentions confuse her - why would such a handsome, wealthy, eligible bachelor pursue a poor, lame widow?  And despite her best intentions to ignore him, she’s flattered by his attentions.  But Elinor rebuffs him, anyway.  She senses there’s more to Stephen than meets the eye, and she’ll never let another man control her ever again.