@La: I think Gabriel's past wasn't mentioned because it wasn't important to the story. Her past with the real Jeremy WAS important though, so the author showed that in the story. No matter what Gabriel's past was, it makes no difference in the outcome of the story. As for the duchess, she had to make a move already. Gabriel was going to escape to America. And I think from the scene between the duchess and the husband that all the blackmailing stuff she did actually paid off to piss her husband off, so she pretty much fulfilled what she wanted to do in the first place.

@Reika_StaR: I actually thought that Euan's death had more emotional impact because he avoided death on the train. It was a huge shocker to see him get killed just like that when had just narrowly avoided death just moments ago(also somewhat depressing).

In general though, I found Euan's death to be a bit fitting...this is a dark story. Nobody seems really, really happy. It makes sense that someone would eventually...die. It's depressing, yes, and I'm certain that Euan didn't want to die just yet. But at least he found peace somehow. And I'm glad that Angela finally grew up after she had kids. She allowed Ray to meet Gabriel again, which was great(and almost made up for the fact that Euan died).

On a side note, I found Joshua's character to be really useless. What was he there for, except for the plot obstacle when Gabriel tried to step in to keep Joshua from killing the horse? Pretty useless, since he doesn't really do anything except play the "I'm-super-in-love-with-Jeremy" role for the rest of the series. This is probably also true of Arron. I guess the friends characters were created just to create more problems for Gabriel?

I also found the subplot of Yvonne and Will to be kind of...weird. It explains why Angela's such a douche and why Yvonne was sleeping with Euan(?). But we never get to see what happens to that pairing(most likely, Yvonne didn't get to see Will and Will dies, but I like to imagine that they saw each other in his last moment and things were happy for a split second).

We never found out about Gabriel's past before she became an orphan and Joshua was just left hanging at the end as well as the Duchess. In my opinion, the whole blackmailing thing the Duchess was doing against Gabriel was weak. It all fell apart when the Duchess gave up her goal leaving a mediocre plot/ending.

Yes, Euan died. But the way that he'd been playing around with women and men, he was bound to get killed by someone's husband or wife. It was unfortunate timing and I'm not sure if he was even having an affair with that particular duchess, but the story did bring up the possibility of him dying due to his playboy habits in chapter 1. And for people that were expecting Jeremy and Ray to end up married and happy, it's Victorian Era England, that just doesn't happen between commoners and nobles. They do end up together - with Gabriel as Ray's mistress - and that's the only way it could have believably happened.

the author took the easy way out of ending the story by having euan dead. and gabriel getting away. wtf!