1.5 stars, rounded up. 
 Because I couldn't decide whether the terribleness of this book was better because it was from one of my favorite authors or if that made it even worse. So I went with better. 
 Behold, the many faces of me, reading this book. 
 What in the everloving hell did I just read? I love Tessa Dare. I can say with absolute confidence she is in my top 3 favorite historical romance authors. Ever. Even when her books aren't necessarily good, they are always entertaining and fun. So much so that you can completely overlook the book's mediocrity. That's not an easy feat. But this book? This book somehow was so bad, that it completely erased any chance of actually being fun and entertaining. It was cringeworthy and sometimes just plain infuriating. 
 The book begins with our spunky yet oddly annoying heroine showing up at the Duke of Ashbury's home unannounced dressed in his ex-fiance's monstrosity of a wedding gown. This is of course, right after he had written the words "I need to find a wife" in a letter. It was strangely reminiscent of the opening scene of Friends. (You know, Ross says out loud something like, "I just wish I were married" and Rachael storms into the coffee shop dressed in her wedding gown.) Anyway, I digress. 
 Apparently, Emma's two letters requesting payment for the dress she created were ignored by both Ashbury and his ex-fiance. Doesn't matter if the wedding didn't happen, she still deserves to be paid, obviously. She has rent to pay and food to buy. She's a seamstress, after all. So she devises a plan. Dress in said monstrosity of a gown and show up at the Duke's residence. That way she can't be ignored. Okay, whatever. 
 So Ashbury looks up, sees Emma, and decides well, he needs a bride. Not just any bride, but a desperate one. Emma is a vicar's daughter, educated, and very beautiful. Plus, he thinks to himself he's always fantasised about screwing a vicar's daughter. Nice, huh? Anway, His ex-fiance left him after he sustained series burns to one side of his face from his time on the battlefield. (A duke, in war? Is that thing? Sounded weird to me. Aren't families worried about him dying and all that? Whatever) So, he still needs a wife, but one that isn't so picky. One willing to overlook his scars. So basically says to her, "I can either pay you for the dress, or you can be my duchess." This isn't such a bad thing if he hadn't heaped every insult possible to his proposal. He lays out every reason that she should consider herself lucky. His wounded pride comes out to play and he makes sure that she feels as awful, ugly, and unwanted as he does inside. I wanted to punch him the nuts. 
 So, as Ashbury so eloquently stated many times, because she might never live above the poverty level going as she was, she might as well marry him and become his broodmare. Plus, lucky for her, once she was pregnant, he would allow her to hide in one of his country houses to raise his son by herself. If she was lucky, Ashbury would even visit the boy when he was twelve or so. 
 So begins a marvelous marriage. Emma decides that if she agrees to be his broodmare (a term actually used many times in this book) then the least he could do is talk to her while they eat dinner each night. Aim, high Emma. So eventually they begin trying for an heir. Ash will only sleep with her with the room dark. No touching. No kissing. Just a few perfunctory thrusts and all that. Emma has a difficult time with that though. While he can't believe she would be attracted to him, she is. He flees when Emma responds to him in bed, leaving her to feel as if she did something wrong. Blah. Blah. Blah. They grow close. Some other stuff happens, including Emma meeting a cast of secondary characters that were just ridiculous. Not funny, ridiculous, but just wtf kind of ridiculous. They are nobility but one of them has a ragtag group of injured animals running around her house. A goat. A hedgehog. A duck. Stuff like that. Another one has a job setting clocks. Another is a scientist baker because there is science to baking. Then there are a few momentary misunderstandings between Ashbury and Emma. Then it ends. Thank god. 
 It isn't uncommon for Tessa Dare's heroes to come across as rude, unkind, and unfeeling at first. There is usually some deep seated pain that needs healing. While Ashbury did have a "reason" for his nastiness, I really felt no pity for him. Maybe because he repeatedly stated that his injury didn't make him into a cruel, angry asshole, it just threw some coal on the fire. He was always a terrible person, now he just had a reason to be. Wow, how could she not fall right into love with him. I always love Tessa Dare's heroes. There is always something heroic about them. Doesn't matter how they act, there is always some underlying protective, gallant nature in them. Tessa Dare tried, with the whole vigilante thing, but it just came off as *gasp* ridiculous. We were supposed to think of Ashbury as the secret knight in shining armor, but guess what? 
 Emma was fine as a heroine. Really. She had a good heart. She wanted to be loved. Safe. Accepted. But somehow the fact that she so quickly fell for Ashbury made it feel more pathetic than romantic. And that made me sad. For her. As she even mentions towards the end of the book, she has daddy issues. A big hulking powerful Duke tells her that her life is and will be complete crap unless she marries him, and she accepts. All of the men in her life had treated her terribly and made her feel unworthy of any kind of love and here comes this asshole with self-esteem issues to validate all of the things she already feels and accepts it because at least she'll have a child to love and a modicum of independence. She even picks up a random alley cat as a pet to have at Ashbury's home so that she can have something to love that will love her back. Fuck. 
 She challenges him on some things, but it's things like "I am going to play badminton with you." Or "We are going to dine together every night." Not exactly what I had in mind. 
 The sex was (eventually) well done. I loved that Emma was sexually confident and bold, but part of the magic of that was overshadowed by Ashbury's unwillingness to let her kiss him or really do anything to him. It was waaaay past the middle portion of the book before he allowed this. like 70% kind of thing. The no kissing thing was such a turn off because of the lack of intimacy it implied. Obviously, that was the reason, but he always wanted to kiss her. She wanted to be kissed. The whole dance around admitting they really wanted each other was just so annoying. 
 Don't get me started on the Monster of Mayfair or whatever. Just don't. 
 I think I'm being extra hard on this book because she is such an amazing writer, IMO. She can do better than this. She has done better than this. She took all of the things that bother me in most HRs that I read and smooshed them together into one book. WHY? She even took all of the things that I absolutely love about her books and somehow twisted them into the completely ridiculous. So disappointed. So, so disappointed. 
 Don't get me wrong, I still love Tessa Dare. I will read any other books she publishes. I will re-read the ones I've already read. This book was just a swing-and-a-miss for me. A massive, epic, oh-dear-god one.