2021/124: Shadow of a Lady -- Jane Aiken Hodge

Miss Tillingdon was always a little shocked by Helen’s interest in the one-time Emmy Hart. She believed that women should be liberated, but not, perhaps, quite so liberated as Lady Hamilton. [p. 41]

Labelled as a Regency romance, but to my mind it's neither: it's set in the 1780s, and the romance is secondary to the historical narrative. Helen Telfair has sworn never to marry. She is due to inherit a great deal of money when she comes of age, and she intends to set up house with her friend Miss Tillingdon. Then her mother falls ill, and she and Helen accompany Helen's father, a naval captain, to the Mediterranean. Captain Telfair assures the ladies that they will be quite safe: in this, he is incorrect. Helen finds herself in a terrible quandary, and marriage to the dilettante (and very probably homosexual) Lord Merritt seems the only solution. Then, of course, she must face the man she could have loved, to whom she cannot explain the reason for her marriage. And, once ashore in Naples, she finds herself in the company of her childhood 'angel', a beautiful woman who once danced on a table for the entertainment of some dissolute aristocrats: Lady Emma Hamilton, wife of the British Ambassador.

Lots of naval action, double-crossing, perfidy, bad behaviour and poor parenting. Helen does seem prone to dropping people when their faults become evident: I don't think she ever writes to Miss Tillingdon to say that her plans have changed; she is immensely grateful for the company of Charlotte in the first days of her marriage, but begins to find her company grating; and though by the end of the novel she has every reason to distrust and fear Lord Merritt, she is never really appreciative of the fact that he's saved her reputation and perhaps her life.

The novel seemed to end very suddenly, in a flurry of action and resolution. An epilogue might have helped...

I found the historical aspects of the novel more compelling than Helen's story, though it's interesting to see the everyday effects of revolution, war and volcanic eruption -- and the efforts of Sir William Hamilton on behalf of the British -- from the perspective of a lonely and desperate Englishwoman. Not one of Aiken Hodge's best, though.