This is possibly the most unusual Regency romance I’ve ever read. It sounds seriously unworkable, but although I had a few issues with it, overall the author does a magnificent job overcoming the inherent implausibilities for one of the most resounding characters arcs ever.
Here’s the premise: Maggie was left at a foundling hospital as a baby by her mother, raised in the strict atmosphere there to be a useful and hard-working member of society. At the age of twenty, she’s taken to a cottage many miles away where her job will be to act as ‘companion’ to a lunatic, confined there by his family for his own good. Edward is a quiet, nervous young man, not much older than Maggie, but as she encourages him to enjoy himself a little, even to play (the inevitable snowball fight), he begins to open up a little and she begins to wonder whether he’s really mad or whether his withdrawn nature and nightmares are merely symptoms of some traumatic experiences.
Every two months, a doctor comes to administer ‘treatment’ to Edward, which is described in graphic and horrifying detail. The author’s note at the end assures the reader that everything described was actually used at the time. We can only be thankful that medicine has moved on since those benighted times.
But then comes disruption. Edward is a son of the Duke of Buckingham, and now that his father and elder brother are both dead, he’s taken back to his home of Atherton Park to be groomed for the London season, where he is to marry and sire an heir or two. His mother insists on his compliance, but he insists on having Maggie, the only person who ever cared for him, by his side during a process he finds terrifying. So Maggie is to be dressed in finery and put through the season, too, masquerading as an impoverished distant cousin, and the few months before then are spent preparing both of them to appear in society.
There’s a huge amount of detail of the preparations – the clothes, the dancing master, the art master, the learning about cutlery, even the choosing of ribbons. Frankly there was way too much of this for my taste, and it could have been summarised in a couple of paragraphs, but if you ever wanted to know exactly what a lady needs for the season, this is the book for you.
So off we go to London, first for the Little Season in the autumn (which to my understanding wasn’t a thing, but never mind) and then for the main season from Easter onwards. The author has them returning to London very early in the year purely (I suspect) so she can take the main characters for a day at the Frost Fair, when the Thames was so ice-bound that all sorts of stalls and entertainments took place on it. To be honest, while interesting, I didn’t think this added much to the story.
Thus to the season proper, where Edward is hounded to the limits of his endurance and beyond by ambitious girls and their mothers keen to catch a duke, and Maggie becomes a success, too. And no one seems to guess that she’s not really aristocracy, not even lower gentry, but a working class girl. This is the point where I have to grit my teeth, because the difference in accent would be huge and not easy to overcome, even with a great deal of training, but I didn’t see any mention of it. Well, Maggie is a bit of a Cinderella, so let’s just go with the flow.
All the while, there’s the dark threat hanging over Edward that if he doesn’t do as he’s told, he’ll be locked away again, and this time forever. If he complies, he’ll still live a restricted life but he’ll have some freedom. So he goes along with it for that little sliver of hope, and Maggie helps him. So even though the two have clearly fallen in love, they’re terrified to do anything about it, thinking that Edward’s mother and his doctor have all the power. The moment when he breaks free, realising that – he’s a duke! He can do whatever he wants! – is absolutely glorious, and makes this book truly special.
A few minor quibbles. Side-saddles with twin pommels were a Victorian invention, as were dance cards (although the paper fan style sounds charming). I was also uncomfortable with using a real duke’s title. The author explains that the Duke of Buckingham’s title is now extinct, and was so during the Regency, which is true, but there were real Duke’s of Buckingham both before and after, so it seems cheeky to me. It’s not hard to make up a name. Still, kudos for pointing out that there were fewer than thirty non-royal dukes at the time. Not a lot of people know that, and if you read much Regency romance, you’d be forgiven for thinking there were thousands of them. There’s one gratuitous and totally implausible sex scene, although tasteful rather than graphic.
But none of this made much difference. I loved the original characters (a lunatic and a foundling! How many authors would even dare?), I loved the slow-build romance, I loved seeing Edward ever so slowly becoming the self-confident young man he was destined to be. I also loved the free-spirited Lady Honoria, and hope she turns up in a later book. And oh the joy of a book free from typos and Americanisms. Highly recommended. Five stars.
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