More Than a Lover by Ann Lethbridge
This Edwardian romance has young Caroline Falkner managing a home for reformed prostitutes. The home is owned by her friend and patron Merry Tonbridge and her husband Charles. Caroline has portrayed herself as the widow of a soldier, but the truth is more embarrassing. She was wooed by a young officer just as she was coming to be a marriageable age, and then left pregnant when he went to war never to return. Both his parents and hers turned their backs on her and she moved forward as best she could to make a life for her and her child Tommy.
Tommy is around five and adventurous and confident, but Caroline guards the truth about his father closely, and is worried that his father's parents would try to take him from her. When the Tonbridges hire Bladen Read, illegitimate son of an earl and a man recently discharged from the army to protect Caroline on her journey from London back to the home, and then to provide protection at the home against those who would like it to fail, she is uncertain. She doesn't want to be reminded of Tommy's father, but she is drawn to this man, who has lost his arm in the country's service.
Read is also torn. He thought Caroline beautiful when he saw her being courted years before and still admires her. But he has always felt the status of his birth to be a mark against himself, and has a reputation as a ladies man.
The drama between the two main characters is well set, and we are introduced to the society of the times, including the ways of the upper class. A love story between two passionate people each with something that makes them wary.
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