A chance encounter via Bookbub for 99p, but this looked unusually interesting. It turned out to be a good read, the Americanisms weren’t too annoying and the sex, while somewhat implausible, was an integral part of the plot. Victorian, rather than Regency, but none the worse for that. Apart from a few references to copious petticoats, one would never guess this was set in 1843.
Here’s the premise: Audrey Blake is a widow, abandoned by her fortune-hunting husband after one night of marriage so that he could join the army, where he promptly gets himself killed. Blind since a childhood illness, Audrey isn’t thought capable of managing her husband’s estate on her own, so she stays at home managing the household, taken for granted by her father, ignored by her brother and resented by her sister. All she wants is to escape, but it doesn’t seem as if there’s any way.
But then Robert, the Earl of Knightsbridge, a former soldier who knew her husband, comes to pay his condolences. Guilty because he feels his actions got her husband killed, he wants to find some way to be of service to her. What could be more fortuitous? Get me out of here, she implores him. But how to get her away from her father? Robert suggests a fake engagement. His own estate is not far from Audrey’s and as her pretend fiance, he can help her settle in. Later, she can break off the engagement. What could possibly go wrong?
Actually, less than you might think. The two successfully make their escape from Audrey’s home, although the journey isn’t without difficulties. A thief breaking into Audrey’s room at the inn provides an opportunity for a semi-naked Robert to rescue her. Now, Audrey can’t see all that well-honed manly flesh, but she can certainly feel it, and compare it with her husband’s less well-proportioned form. And so we’re well away with the beginnings of lustful thoughts on both sides.
This early part of the book, before things really hot up sexually, is beautifully done, and the spiky exchanges between the two are incredibly realistic. She’s fiercely determined to be independent and not be pitied or patronised, so she quite rightly gets cross when he jumps in to smooth the way. He, on the other hand, is an earl and an officer, used to being in charge, and finds it difficult to step aside and let her do things her own way. As he explains to her, she’s his fiancee and that makes him protective of her. ‘It’s what men do,’ he says. The adjustments they both have to make are fascinating.
At Audrey’s small estate, she finds the servants behaving rather oddly, and things happening that seem designed to make her leave. She’s determined to stay, and is smart enough to bring the servants in line and (eventually) to find out just what is going on. Meanwhile, Robert is visiting frequently, helping her meet her tenants and the locals, and generally making himself useful. And (needless to say) the two are slowly falling in love.
And if that were all, this would be a fairly standard traditional romance. But right from the start, even though the engagement is fake, Robert is all over Audrey, first with kisses (and perhaps some of that is necessary to convince everyone that the engagement is real) but later with more passionate interludes, and he tries to persuade her to have an affair with him, even if she doesn’t want to marry. I have to say that I can’t quite approve of Robert’s actions, and there’s a point near the end when he basically seduces her, even though he’s well aware that if she ends up pregnant, she will have to marry him, whether she wants to or not. Not nice, especially when he’s talked so much about patience. A little restraint wouldn’t go amiss, but then she collapses into a puddle of lust at the first kiss, so perhaps it’s not too surprising.
The end of the book tips into a maelstrom of revelations on both sides and multiple changing of minds back and forth, only resolved when Audrey’s sister, who started off as something of a nasty piece of work and magically transformed into a heroine mid-book, bangs their heads together, and they all lived happily ever after, no doubt (including the servants and the rosy-cheeked yokels). Well, one doesn’t look for too much realism in a work like this.
A few Americanisms, but nothing too outrageous, and otherwise very well written and enjoyable from start to finish. The sex scenes are well done if not always plausible (the dining table? Really?). Audrey is perhaps a shade too quick to find her way around a new house, but it’s so nice to see a properly disabled heroine that I’m not going to quibble. Five stars.
I would have bought the other books in the series, but the price was outside my comfort zone, and book 1 hinged on a marriage by proxy (a complete no-no in English law) so I decided to pass. Shame.
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