This is not my favorite book by Delilah Marvelle. As usual, the dialogue is wonderful and all the characters are interesting. And I liked the premise itself. However, the resolution seemed rushed and incomplete. Derek and Clementine stumble into the School of Gallantry and Derek is taken on as a pupil, but we don't really see the school playing a major factor in his learning to be a better husband by being a friend to his wife. The only scene of the actual school that we see, not counting the impromptu session before his official enrollment, doesn't serve any purpose except for providing a touchstone to link this book with the others in the series. His conversation with Prince Nasser is more relevant to his development. And there's no indication of how Clementine learns to overcome her fears of repeating her mother's destructive behaviors and be more affectionate with her husband. Although the official school is for men, I think Clementine was as much in need of tutoring as Derek if not more and could have benefited from some private sessions in confidence apart from being given a bag of bondage equipment. Then at the end we go straight from her not wanting children and not having slept with her husband since their wedding night to her deciding she wants babies immediately. We haven't seen that she's feeling secure in them as a couple yet before she announces that she'd like to add some more. Yes, logically a viscount needs an heir so they aren't going to be putting that off for long, but I'd have liked to see her having learned to be a happy wife before deciding she had gotten to a point where she was ready to be a mother, especially since the practicalities of them having sex while making sure they avoid pregnancy had already been dealt with in the plot so it wasn't like that wasn't on the table. (In fact, if only the mention of being ready to have a child could have been omitted from the final chapter before the epilogue entirely, there could still have been a baby in the epilogue I would have assumed she'd gone through those stages a little more slowly and it would have felt a little more natural. Although I would still probably have rolled my eyes a little at the cliche of the epilogue baby.) The pacing just generally feels a bit off, without enough work having been done on Clementine's part, and with her issues having been fixed all in one step. That said, I'm still looking forward to Brayton's book just as eagerly as I have been since he was first introduced.
Overall: B