Ollie Aspinwall is the Earl of Stanford in this romance of contrasting manners set in turbulent historical society. ONE WEDDING AND AN EARL first shows us the central characters as youngsters, Oliver ordered around by an unsympathetic father and never hearing praise. Necessity Byrne is a girl from London whose family were up-and-coming merchants, but she loses them to cholera and has to struggle to survive. Growing up in the rookeries with no more education, she makes hard choices.

Necessity works at gardening and herbal cures, then with the aid of the improving ladies of the Duchess Society, she starts her landscape architect business and becomes the rich folks’ gardener. This is the fourth book in the Duchess Society series, about capable, bright people rescued from the workhouses and given a start in life. By the time this young woman is engaged to work on Ollie’s rural home’s gardens, she has a fine reputation, but anyone earning their money is too grubby to be accepted into the ton. Necessity dons either male clothing or shabby dresses as she digs and prunes, but cleans up to pore over landscape plans in the study and conservatory.

I garden myself, so I am delighted to see a woman in this role. Having previously spent her life in London, our heroine loves the quiet countryside and spacious grounds in Derbyshire.  However, her new boss has a rakish reputation and doesn’t socialise much anymore, haunted by his service in India. He prefers astronomy, better conducted in clean air. This means they can’t avoid each other, and feel a growing attraction. I do think the pair spent a lot of time arguing, which wasn’t considered good manners, but this may be due to Ollie’s unconsciously behaving like his late father, and Necessity feeling insecure. No matter how good she is at her job, she feels she can never be good enough for an earl.  

One point I particularly value is that the titled hero is not perfect. He is still recovering from injuries of various sorts and does not see himself as husband material.  An interesting side character is his half-brother Xander, born on the wrong side of the blanket but happily settled with his wife Pippa much sooner. Necessity, while a fine, caring person, doesn’t want to save Olly from anything, but she does want to restore his handsome estate gardens. The spark between the couple generates a strong, sexy romance, chaperone or no chaperone.  ONE WEDDING AND AN EARL by Tracy Sumner has a lot of depth and interest. 

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