He's wracked with guilt because he was unable to save him, and he hates the Irish with a passionate vengeance. He was disfigured by the loss of an eye while fighting in Ireland, which is also where he witnessed a mob murdering his father. Later, he visits his mistress and 'attempting exercise far beyond his capacity,' he leaves embarrassed and sulky. In one early scene, we find him waking up drunk, fully clothed, and filthy from his own vomit. His behavior is not like that of other romance heroes either. He’s even too indolent to rid himself of his stupid mistress, whom he doesn't even like. He’s too lazy to hire a valet, or to replace the secretary he fired for stealing. He's a drunkard who neglects his duties (although he is nice to his mother).

The characters struggle with guilt, human frailty, and rise above adversity with strength, caring from sometimes unexpected places and, finally, love. Now the real story of mutual redemption begins.Ĭarla Kelly is one of my favorite authors and this is a grand story. In order to more quickly end her indenture and get on with her own personal agenda, Emma takes Ragsdale up on his drunken request that she reform him. And that is how Ragsdale ended up with Emma Costello, Irish woman. When instinct awoke Ragsdale in the night, he discovered that Robert had stolen all of his money and Ragsdale ran downstairs to discover his cousin about to gamble the indenture contract of his sister’s Irish maidservant. There Ragsdale discovered that Robert had a ruinous addiction to gambling. Along the road to Oxford, where Lord Ragsdale and his mother were going to enroll Robert, one of his cousins, the entourage stopped for the night at an inn. She piqued his interest until she made a comment under her breath and he heard her Irish lilt.

He almost immediately wrote off his cousins, but they had with them a maidservant, who was unobtrusive, attractive, and apparently both intelligent and educated (certainly more so than his cousins).

What made the day the novel opens any different from any other day was the unexpected (to him) arrival from the United States of his first cousins.

Reforming Lord Ragsdale by Carla Kelly