
Here’s the premise: in book 1, Barstow daughter Jane made a terrible mistake, by eloping to marry a man who was handsome and charming and everything that was desirable, but also unreliable. When his aunt, from whom he expected to inherit, cuts him off without a penny, he ends up in the Fleet debtors’ prison. Happily (I suppose) he died there, too, leaving Jane to return home a broken woman, widowed and disgraced. For two years, she’s hidden herself away at the Barstows’ grace-and-favour cottage, venturing forth only to church.
But then comes a change. The vicar needs to go away to recover his health, so he installs a temporary curate in his place, and wouldn’t you just know it, but Philip Egerton is handsome and vibrant, a thoroughly good man who’s everything that Jane’s husband wasn’t. The arrival of Philip and his sister Cassandra is the spark which gets Jane back into the world again, which is a good thing, and there’s an obvious spark of attraction between them, too. But frankly the early chapters, featuring a rash of coincidental encounters, sometimes literally bumping into each other and edging into outright farce, are all a bit too silly for me, and Philip comes across at this point as a bit of a sanctimonious twit (or ‘parsonish’, as one character calls him). Not a particularly appealing hero.
Fortunately, Jane is everything that’s endearing, and the Barstow family is its usual rumbustious and totally loyal self. Dudley writes wonderful families, and here’s another one which is a joy to be allowed to mingle with. And into this setting arrives a character who is not endearing at all, the irritating, flirtatious and entitled Mr Beck, who singles Jane out at once as the target of his tomfoolery, and it never once crosses his mind that his attentions might be unwelcome. After all, she’s a disgraced woman, so she’ll be grateful for any man who’ll have her, on whatever terms, won’t she?
Philip also has an alternative love interest, in the delectable person of the very beautiful Miss Hynde, only eighteen years old but featuring very firmly in his future plans. His fellowship from Oxford (achieved), a curacy (achieved), a living, in time, and then… marriage to Miss Hynde. And somehow, his self-knowledge not being very great, it never crosses his mind that his infatuation with Miss H is wearing off and a certain widow is featuring more prominently in his thoughts.
The two dance around each other for virtually the whole book, with the scoundrelly Mr Beck causing mayhem, and both Philip and Jane behaving with less than gentlemanly/ladylike restraint. There are some fun side characters (I love the gossipy Mrs Lamb at the inn!), Dudley’s trademark quotations on every chapter and thank heavens for a book that’s genuinely funny!
I must also add a modest paean of praise for the timid baron, Lord Dere, who appears to be thoroughly henpecked by his widowed sister-in-law, Mrs Markham Dere, but rises to the occasion beautifully when honour and justice demand it. He’s a bit of a plot device, parachuted in to resolve tricky problems, but I love the fact that he’s so different from the usual run of lords in Regencies, who tend to be arrogant, aggressive, randy or grumpy.
Everything is resolved satisfactorily at the end, albeit with another coincidence, but Dudley seems to specialise in those, so I won’t quibble. And I loved Philip’s explosion in the inn yard – a moment to savour. Another great read, highly literate and intelligent, and with (shock horror!) a bit of a moral to it, if lightly made. An excellent five stars.