Book Review: His Lady Mistress by Elizabeth Rolls

This book was a free download from Harlequin, and is still free on the Kindle app for your smartphones.
For a free download-Not bad.
I think that when you have a spunky heroine she should stay true to that. Enter Verity. Her father commits suicide and she is then left penniless because the law confiscates everything of his that very night. Later on that night, she plants flowers on her father's grave, and a man is there to help-Max. He takes her home, feeds her and leaves her to her uncle. She is shuffled off to said relative who takes her dignity, and treats her like Cinderella-poor cousin who has no choice but to fend off her male cousin's advances, be treated worse than the servants, and have the servants treat her shabbily too. Her aunt/uncle even changed her name. But she is supposedly "not broken" throughout all this. I say she adapted to survive, but in doing so, gave up parts of herself. This book is by no means on the level of Julia Quinn, Sarah MacLean or Lisa Kleypas, so don't expect a fabulous read. The storyline is there, it's just too indecisive.
She is asked by a guest of her Aunt and Uncle (who is visiting to court her cousin) if she would be his mistress and she accepts, but it is Max! And he's an earl. He came to find out how she was...too bad her uncle passed her off as a servant and said that Verity Scott was dead-and well, she practically was, just Selina the servant remained. Enter Doormat Verity.
Verity was accused of trapping Max into marriage, and she just wanted escape. Their marriage was a series of back and forth like/don't like scenes.
He felt sweet on Selina, finds out it's Verity and that she lied to him-he hates her. He realizes she didn't try to trap him (meanwhile she has retreated into herself and become Doormat, as I shall henceforth call her) So Doormat then behaves like a beaten dog-any bit of attention from Max and she has love and hope again, wagging her tail and licking his hand. Any harsh words she's cold and on the verge of crying, cowering with her tail tucked.
I actually did like the story, just don't expect alot from it. It had so much potential-but the back and forth between the two lead characters just annoyed me. Doormat grew a bit of a backbone, and Max would realize how wrong he was about her (this happened several times) but he'd never tell her more than just "you're mine,you're not leaving" it got tedious.
I liked Richard, Max's twin who realized before Max did that Verity/Doormat was honest and in love with Max. The pregnancy was almost unexpected, but the hints were there (I'm not spoiling, you figure it out soon enough). But Max had made it quite clear he didn't want any children. That whole situation was handled poorly.
I read it at one sitting-it's not long, and easy to follow, just look at it as a freebie, and don't have high expectations. I liked it, I just got annoyed with the Spunky girl who became Doormat, and never showed her true spunk again.
2 stars