...perhaps I should make it plain at once that even though I am susceptible to colds, and infinitely prefer cats to dogs, I have not been selling information to Bonaparte’s agents. How degrading it is to be obliged to say so! [loc. 4261]
Possibly a reread? I don't remember it at all, but I devoured Heyer's novels in the mid-Nineties, and it's likely this was one of them.
Elinor Rochdale, whose father committed suicide after losing the family fortune, has been obliged to seek employment as a governess. En route to a new, unappealing position, she gets into the wrong carriage in a Sussex village, and discovers that she's been mistaken for a young woman who answered an advertisement for the position of wife to a dissolute, debauched nobleman. The advertisement was placed by the groom-to-be's cousin, Lord Carlyon, who manages to persuade Elinor to go through with his outrageous scheme. (His intent is to ensure that he does not inherit his cousin Eustace's estate, because aristocracy.) Eustace, it turns out, has been injured (by Carlyon's younger brother) in a tavern brawl, and is not expected to survive the night. Elinor is widowed by dawn: but a mysterious visitor alerts her, and Carlyon, to the possibility that Eustace was not only a debauchee but may have been a traitor, selling secrets to a Napoleonic spy.
I will not detail the romance, as it is (a) evident who'll end up together (b) somewhat sketchily depicted. Having read an excellent blog post by K J Charles, I agree that 'the narrative eye of the book spends most of its time focused in entirely the wrong place': Ned (Carlyon) and Elinor are pretty dull, and so is their romance; the 'French spies' plot, which feels incidental to the romance, is actually a far better story, and features the Machiavellian dandy Francis Cheviot, who is as awesome as Avon in These Old Shades, and fearsomely competent.
I generally find Heyer a pleasant read, and this was no exception: but it does feel very imbalanced, and the romance -- the supposed focus of the novel -- is lacklustre and far from her best.
No comments:
Post a Comment