The Captain's Lady by Margaret McPhee

She cannot risk exposure

When dashing Lord Nathaniel Hawke rescues a girl from drowning the last thing he expects is for that same girl to turn up on board his ship - disguised as a boy!

For Miss Georgiana Raithwaite, running away seemed her only escape from a cruel impending marriage. Never did she imagine that her disguise would see her scrubbing decks on the high seas.... in extremely close proximity to Lord Nathaniel Hawke! Forbidden desires taunt and tantalise them on their stormy voyage. But with reputations at stake they must keep their secret...

I had never heard of this author before, but when I was looking to borrow The Mysterious Miss M by Diane Gaston from the library, both of these books cames in a 2-in-1 book, and because of my obsessive nature, and the fact that I need to finish a book I decided to read both books! Once I got started on The Captain's Lady, it was no hardship anyway!

Georgiana Raithwaite is on the verge of becoming engaged, an event that should be one of the happiest occasions in the life of a well bought up young lady. Unfortunately for Georgiana, her soon to be fiance is a man who is completely obsessive and very much a bully. He is determined to have Georgiana, even if it can only be by compromising her during a walk along the river near her home. In order to avoid compromising situation with him, Georgiana throws herself into the river, and has to be saved by her neighbour, Nathaniel Hawke. After spending some time recuperating in his family home, Georgiana returns to her own, only to find that her father will not listen to her, and that she is to be married off as soon as practical. What's a girl to do but run away disguised as a boy. Unfortunately, whilst on the run, she is press ganged, and finds herself in service on Captain Hawke's ship.

What follows is the story of how Nathaniel and Georgiana come to deal with their growing attraction whilst Nathaniel tries to protect her true identity from the other sailors, and her reputation. Once they reach Gibraltar, Georgiana can once again be once more kitted out as a lady, and travel back to England, appropriately chaperoned of course. But on her return, she will once more meet her former fiance who is none to pleased to learn that he has lost her to Captain Hawke.

Nathaniel is the very epitomy of a gentleman - charming and polite, dashing and handsome, and despite the events outlined above which do make her sound a little silly, Georgiana is a match for him in many ways! The build up of their relationship is very nicely written. I would say that the villain in this piece is completely two dimensionally obsessive and it is for this reason I didn't mark the book any higher.

I certainly won't mind reading any more books by Margaret McPhee, although she doesn't really seem to have much of a net presence or much of a backlist. From what I can tell there is one other book called Mistaken Mistress which was released last year, and a new one called The Wicked Earl out in September. Unfortunately, I don't think my library has either on catalogue.

Rating 4/5