Fool Me Twice (Rules for the Reckless #2) by Meredith Duran

Historical Romance

From Goodreads:

Sensible and lonely, Olivia Mather survives by her wits—and her strict policy of avoiding trouble. But when she realizes that the Duke of Marwick might hold the secrets of her family’s past, she does the unthinkable, infiltrating his household as a maid. She’ll clean his study and rifle through his papers looking for information.

Alastair de Grey has a single reason to live: vengeance. More beautiful than Lucifer, twice as feared, and thrice as cunning, he’ll use any weapon to punish those who fooled and betrayed him—even an impertinent maid who doesn’t know her place. But the more fascinated he becomes with the uppity redhead, the more dangerous his carefully designed plot becomes. For the one contingency he forgot to plan for was falling in love…and he cannot survive being fooled again.

Fool Me Twice uses a familiar trope – getting a job in a peer’s house for a personal reason.  The person is Olivia Mather, the search is for proof against someone trying to kill her, the job is housekeeper.  Olivia and her past are what makes this use unique.

I loved Olivia.  She is strong and has looked after herself since she was 16.  Part of what she has had to do involved running for her life as someone is trying to kill her.  At first there is no clue why but long before it was revealed I knew the reason.  I will confess I did not know the person until the end.

Alastair de Grey, the Duke of Marwick, owns the household where she got the job.  He was not nearly as strong as Olivia.  In fact when his wife died and he learned the truth about her actions he fell apart.  Olivia has to get him on his feet to find the information she needs.   Olivia has to make some hard decisions and Alastair has to come to terms with how the past is keeping him from trusting anyone.  If that happens they can have their HEA.

Fool Me Twice is a fun read with many twists and turns.  It combines romance with danger while keeping the reader glued to the pages. 

This is book two in the series.  I read it as a stand-alone and even through there were hints about things I missed in book one they were not that important to the story.

Pocket Books published Fool Me Twice by Meredith Duran in 2013.

I received an ARC of Fool Me Twice from Edelweiss.