In order to help her sister escape away from an arranged marriage to save the family financially and to marry a man she loved, stuttering, nineteen year old Horatia Winwood steps forward and asks the thirty-five year old Earl of Rule to marry her instead. Intrigued, the Earl agrees and changes his proposal to Horatia and marries her. But not all is well in the house. An early agreement in their marriage was that they wouldn't bother one another about mistresses or affairs, but go on with blind eyes. With her blind eyes Horatia has found gambling and to spend as much money as she feels at the time. She's become lavish and in debt and incapsulated by the notorious gambler Lord Lethbridge who has very wide eyes toward Horatia.
Georgette Heyer's book was very different from what I was expecting. Shorter than I expected. And it didn't have the "love story" feel to it as I was expecting as well.
It had a heavy back drop of a simple "marriage of convenience," which is obviously fitting, and the unscrupulous side of "high society." Almost like the "gothic novels" that Jane Austen critics in Northanger Abbey. Gambling, duels, kidnappings, and not-so-secret affairs are most definitely things that aren't in the regency books I've read so far (though it was published in 1934, so very much written in a more modern style than what I'm used to as well). So it was strange. Not in a bad way, but not necessarily something I'd enjoy reading again. I'm interested to read some her other books and see what happens in them.
The reader, though, was Richard Armitage which was very surprising. Not only from North and South and the Hobbit movies, but an audiobook reader as well! He did all of the voices well, even the Horatia who has a very prominent stutter throughout the whole of the book. Well done. He made it more enjoyable to listen to.
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