This is quite an unusual historical romance. The heroine, Drusilla, is an orphaned and very wealthy merchant's daughter who has fewer suitors than her fortune would normally command due to her intelligence and sharp tongue. The hero, Gabriel, is the unusual half of the couple - his mother is the daughter of a Duke (and now married to a Marquess) There are lots of familiar tropes here, like forced marriage, young women with proto-feminist ideals, crushing on a friend's (step/half) brother, villainous scheming in the ton, kidnapping, etc. It could still have worked here if the main characters were more likable. Drusilla sometimes seems playful but mostly just harshly sarcastic, and she talks a good game about reading Mary Wollstonecraft, but then pretty much just folds into a surrendered wife and (step)mother. She and Gabriel never communicate well. Gabriel is all over the place even more, from promiscuous and selfish one moment, to proud and honor-bound the next, to cold and chauvinist so fast it makes your head spin.