1946 Regency romance. Elinor Rochdale is travelling to take up a post
as a governess, only to find herself made a strange offer: if she will
marry someone's reprobate cousin, she need never see him again, but
she will not lose by it. She declines, of course, but soon finds that
she has no choice.
Although this is categorised as a Regency romance, the romance is
very much in the background: it's not until the last chapter that
anyone declares themselves, and even then it's not in a usual pattern.
Instead, this is Heyer writing a story of espionage: the reprobate
cousin Eustace manages to get himself mortally injured, so Elinor is
rushed through the formalities of marriage only to find herself in
possession of a house gone to ruin… and, apparently, a missing secret
document? After all, it's early in 1813, and Wellington has planned
his next campaign season…
Which means there's a hollow in this book where the
gradually-developing romance would normally be; there are signs here
and there, but mostly the story is about Elinor's trying to cope with
her untenable situation dealing with Eustace's sympathetic
relatives—some of whom may themselves be working for the French and
wanting to recover the document. Meanwhile she is defended by Lord
Carlyon, who set up the marriage plan to pacify that section of his
family who think that Carlyon drove Eustace to the bad as a way to
inherit his property; but more, in practice, by his younger brother
Nicky, who is perhaps the acme of Heyer's idiotic but well-meaning
young men. He's all for the adventure, and quite unwilling to believe
that Elinor might not enjoy, as he does, the prospect of French agents
breaking in through the secret passage…
It's all good fun, though perhaps it sometimes leans a little too hard
on the core joke of Nicky enthusiastic for adventure while Elinor
tries to put up with both him and the fear of being murdered in her
bed. Still, there is Nicky's hopeless dog Bouncer, who makes up for a
lot.