Hero of the Week: Jordan Townsende

This week is a goody week for me because we voted on one of my favorite Judith McNaught hero's for this week spotlight Hero.

Jordan Addison Matthew Townsende.

Man of many titles, lands and riches. Husband to one young and very naive woman, named Dylan I mean, Alexandra. What I liked most about Jordan was that throughout his book, Something Wonderful we see the change in Jordan from the beginning of the book to the end of the book. In the beginning of the book we meet Jordan and he's 18 years old and he doesn't have a very high opinion of women, thanks to the women in his life, mainly his mother and the wives of the men that share his bed from time to time. You can tell that because he's a man of privilege, he's very intelligent and he's very cynical.

Mild cynicism marred the youthful handsomeness of his lean features as Jordan watched his mother and her newest lover cross the lawns and saunter into the arbor. A few moments later, his father emerged from the same hedge maze, looked about him, then retrieved Lady Milborne, his current paramour from the bushes.

"Aparently, my mother has found a new lover," Jordan drawled sarcastically.

"Really?" Lady Harrington asked, peering out the window. "Who?"

"Your husband." Turning fully torward her, Jordan studied her lovely face, searching for some sign of surprise. When he saw none, his own features hardened into an ironic mask. "You knew they were in the maze together and that accounts for your unprecedented interest in MY bed, is that it?"

She nodded, uneasy under the unrelenting gaze of those cool grey eyes.

..."Poor little Catherine," he said dryly, reaching out and brushing his knuckles against her cheek. "What a miserable lot you women have, from the day you're born, anything is yours for the asking and so you have nothing to work for, and even if you did, you wouldn't be permitted to work for it. We don't allow you to study and you're forbidden sports, so you cannot exercise your mind or your body. You don't even have honor to cling to, for although a man's honor is his to hold to for as long as he wishes, yours is between your legs and you lose it to the first man who has you. How unjust life is for you!" he finished. "No wonder you're all so bored, amoral and frivolous."

That's the Jordan we meet.

As the saying goes, it's gonna get worst before it gets better. So yeah you guessed it, it got worst.

Jordan meets Alex, his heroine when she's trying to save him from being robbed and killed, he mistakes her for a boy and when she's fallen (but not dead, obviously) he carries her into a bedroom at the nearby Inn and attends to her.

Not too long after they part ways and little Alex makes an impression on him that there IS goodness in the world his hopes are dashed when Alex comes to his home on the heels of her enraged Mother, who demands that Jordan marries Alex for tarnishing her reputation. Her poor daughter was only trying to save him and he thanks her by ruining her chances at any sort of a decent marriage.

So you can just imagine the kind of jerk Jordan turned into. He wasn't very nice to his new bride, he made plans that would have embarrassed and ashamed Alex and chipped at her self worth. He did all of this because of the way he was brought up. He was brought up thinking that he had a duty and he was to see to it. All his life, he'd been disappointed by women, his mother, the women who shared his bed, they were all shallow and cared for nothing and no one. There wasn't anyone in his life that could have shown him the positive side of life.

All he knew growing up was harsh and cold reality. The magnitude of his calling as the future Duke of Hawthorne. He was pushed and bullied by his father to be this hard and unyielding man and it was no wonder that he was so far gone by the time Alex came into this life that he didn't even realize the gem he had by marrying Alex until it was almost too late.

She changed him and shared her world with him and it was the little part of Alex's world that helped him through the hard times of trying to escape the bad guys who stole him. It was the goodness he saw in Alex and the goodness she shared with him that kept him alive and kicking, Alex and the goodness in her was what gave Jordan something to hold on to and something to look forward to returning to.

She gave him something to fight for.

It was a long road back home and and an even rockier road once returned. He had a lot of making up to do but you can see in the book how much he fought for her. His struggle with his feelings, his struggle with the facts presented to him, you saw all of that and you felt for him even though you were kicking him in the knee caps because he was always doubting everything around him. His past and his childhood were so engrained in his mind that he had a hard time coming to grips with trust and love.

But at the end, you saw the growth of Jordan Townsende as a man and you saw the goodness you knew from the beginning was inside him come out. And the strength it took to finally be at a place where he loved openly and with all that he was was such a reward because Jordan Townsende was one hunky ass hero.

My first hero, the one that captured me, the one that hooked me on romance novels in the beginning. He's my first hero love.

It was quotes like these that sealed Jordan's hotness in for me.

"Oh, Alex," he wept rocking her in his arms like a baby, "how will I go living without you? Take me with you, he whispered. "I want to go with you..."

Oh holy goodness, this whole scene, which I would post for you but I really want you to read the whole of it for yourself in the book because gosh it's a good scene, one of the best scenes, one that had me bawling buckets like a baby, it was so good. All the promises he makes just so that she doesn't do the unthinkable and leave him, all the things he says to her to make her realize the goodness she's brought into his life, all the places he wants to take her, the things he wants her to see with him...oh gosh it was such a good scene.

and...

"My pride was hurt that you left me in the middle of the night," he admitted.

For someone as powerful and prideful as Jordan to even ADMIT this to Alex endeared Jordan to me because the Jordan from the beginning of the book would never have admitted such a thing and yet, here he is, admitting it to her. *sigh*

The change in Jordan from the beginning to the end and all the sweetness in between is why we voted Jordan for this week's Hero of the Week, his sexy grey eyes and dark hair helped his cause a whole lot as well and because we know that you're dying to see it...here's our picture of Lord Jordan Townsende, Duke of Hawthorne.