Sacrament

The heroine is devastated when a claim is put through that her home is actually legally in the ownership of another man. The only way for her to fight the claim is to produce her legal ownership but it's gone missing under mysterious circumstances. The one responsible is a devil instead. Dressing is all black and possessing the ability to both terrify and attract every soul in any room he enters, the hero is threatening her livelihood and that's something she won't allow. But despite the fact that they should really be enemies, the heroine finds herself enjoying his conversations, much to her disgust. He's gentlemanly enough to escort her home and in that time, she speaks with him about history and her love of Roman culture. Though they show more often disagree on a range of topics, she finds him to be extremely interesting. Her friends also finds him to be interesting and the deranged woman takes it into her head to capture the mysterious man's attention. Though nothing at all like with the other woman and in all honesty strongly opposed to the way she presents herself and her single minded obsession with the hero, the heroine stays friends with her as they've shared a dangerous experience some years ago. The other woman keeps the heroine secrets so they have a twisted sort of friendship. The heroine is envious at times the friends courage and intensity as she finds herself boring and reserved, not at all the sort of woman to capture and hold the attention of such a man as the hero. But when the man spurs the friends attentions, ridicules her in public, the unstable woman seeks revenge. She locks him in the basement, forces him opium. When the heroine hears no word from either the hero or her friend for some weeks, she grows concerned and visits the friends estate. There she is horrified to discover what her friend has done and convinces the friend to let her take him off her hands. The other woman, horrified to discover that the hero is more than human and kills her manservant, the friend is happy to be free of her burden. The heroine takes the man back her estate and nurses him back off his addiction. In the process, she discovers that she is bonded to the man like no other. The experience they've shared has created a link that shall forever connect them. Also, she's discovered he's a vampire. She even gives him her blood to heal. The heroine was horribly naïve at times but selfless to a fault and willing to believe that the hero is no monster. She manages to change him. She makes him become a kinder man, more forgiving. It's because of her that he doesn't seek revenge for what the friend did to him. But not satisfied with what she's already done, the friend has him convicted of murder and he must flee the city. Before he goes he expressed him love for the heroine, offers her his Companion so as to make her immortal and his mate. But she turns him down, in her cowardice, she fears she's lost him forever so she follows him to Vienna to fight for the man whose come to mean everything to her. I thought this book was a nice but it had just too many things going on. Normally a historical romance is known to be slower paced, drawn out so as to develop characters. But this one had the reader bouncing all over the place. First the land dispute, then the crazy friend, then the kidnapping and imprisonment and opium addiction, then the murders, then the Monk's convict. It was like a connect the dotes drawing. It didn't focus as much on the romance until the end. In fact, I wasn't convinced the hero felt anything for the heroine until after he was free of opium which is well past the halfway mark of the book. When they did settle down and get to the romance, it was lovely and passionate. but I just felt like it was too busy and muddled for my liking. show less