This is a book of two halves. The first half is a corker, crackling with tension on every page, and quite riveting. Then the protagonists get married and it devolves into a schmaltzy snoozefest, with our hero and heroine playing happy families, frolicking naked in the lake and having long, thoughtful discussions about whether they ought to fall in love or not. The ending is both highly predictable and kind of a con trick, frankly. And everyone sheds tears of joy and lives happily ever after.
The premise is one of those Balogh specials that sounds impossibly implausible, but of course she carries it off with aplomb. Duncan, the Earl of Sheringford, has been in disgraced exile for five years, after jilting his betrothed at the altar and running away with her married sister. When he finally comes home, his grandfather, a marquess, swears to cut him off without a penny unless he marries before the old fellow’s eightieth birthday – just fifteen days away. Duncan will inherit everything eventually since he’s the heir, but he really needs funds and a home right now, so he sets about finding a wife. And the first person he bumps into (literally!) is Margaret Huxtable, running away from both the man who abandoned her years ago and her hoped-for future husband, newly betrothed to someone else. They’re both desperate to marry quickly, so…
Yes, of course it’s preposterous. One of the most preposterous aspects is that the heir to a marquessate would be ostracised by society, no matter what he does. Another is that he can’t simply get a job that would keep himself and his dependents from starving until he inherits. Yet another is that the man who is absolutely desperate to marry should immediately trip over the one woman in London who is absolutely desperate for a husband. Well, that part I can let go. Every author is allowed one screaming coincidence per book, provided it sets the action off and isn’t just a convenient get-out-of-jail-free card. Anyway, they meet, they talk, they know perfectly well it’s preposterous, but they kind of roll with it.
Now, this part of the book is glorious. Her family are uniformly against it, she’s sort of against it herself, the hero’s jilted betrothed turns up to deter Margaret, out of the goodness of her heart and nothing at all to do with the fact that she’s now married to the next in line for the marquessate, oh no, she couldn’t possibly be driven by naked ambition and hatred. So there are some wonderful exchanges here that are actually vintage Balogh. Margaret decides in the end that she won’t agree to anything yet, but if Duncan were to woo her properly, then she’ll decide at the last minute whether or not to accept him. If she says no, then he’s lost everything until he inherits, but if she says yes…
And that would have been fine, with great tension right down to the wire. But no, he tells her some stuff and she caves, and they get married immediately. And then the story goes to hell in a handcart. Now, Margaret’s introduction to life as a married woman and mistress of a large-ish estate and being separated from her close-knit family makes a worthy story in itself, but it’s not the story that started this book, and it’s not the story I wanted to read. After the fireworks of the first half, this part was plain dull. There was so little tension, in fact, that the heroine had to create some by acting completely out of character. There was a point where, after being sensible and smart for the whole book, she suddenly throws a tantrum, and that was just silly. When a hero has been painfully honest and open right from the start, not to mention kind and lovable and understanding, the least you can do is give him the benefit of the doubt when he makes a misstep, just once.
The villains were not terribly villainous, and frankly I had some sympathy with the cousin, who actually had the law of the day totally on his side. He was not just being obstreperous, he actually was in the right. But that was not the happy ending everyone wanted, so it didn’t happen.
Of course, this is Mary Balogh, and it’s so beautifully written that it’s easy to forgive all the preposterous stuff and just enjoy it. The hero and heroine are very, very believable and likable and easy to sympathise with. The second half was so flat that it wouldn’t be worth more than three stars, but the first half was twelve stars at least, so I’ve settled on four as a compromise. NOTE: as with all Mary Balogh’s books, there is some sex.