Elisa Braden, $4.99, ISBN 978-1310368004
Historical Romance, 2016
Benedict Chatham, the latest Marquess of Rutherford, is in a pickle. All his life he’d been content to be deep in his cups, a floozy, or a high-stake game—not necessarily in that order—but now that his father is dead, he realizes that he has inherited a pile of debts.
Oh no, what is a man of privilege, one that has no care for responsibility and has taken life for granted all this while, to do? Work? Oh please, let’s not confuse a romance hero with some mere unwashed plebeian. No, he will marry a wealthy heiress, run her through, and then run through her fortune.
Well, there’s one woman that is perfect for a stereotype like him: another stereotype. Charlotte Lancester wants independence, freedom, et cetera. She has been deliberately sabotaging her father’s efforts to get her married in these five years while she secretly pawns off precious stones and other expensive stuff—the only things she is allowed to spend her allowance on—to save up for her bright future.
You see, she wants to go to America, away from the societal pressure exerted on her in London, where she would… well, insert some half-baked plans here that really don’t matter in the long run because (a) we all know she’s going to get married and have a man help her from falling face down on whatever schemes she cooks up and (b) this darling may claim to be American at heart, but we also know she will wilt and die if she had to do a day of actual middle-class labor.
She is also clumsy and too tall and, eek, has red hair, so she essentially exists to be a drain on her wealthy father’s money. Instead of waiting for her to trip down the stairs in a fatal accident, her father decides to sell her off Chatham. He gets a titled toff in the family and all the lovely connections that come with it, and he’s rid of a parasite on his behind.
Here is where the author makes her first misstep: Charlotte’s father, not her, demands that Chatham will remain sober and faithful to her in the first year of marriage.
Chatham has to agree, of course, as he wants to maintain his current living standard, so by not letting Charlotte be the one to do this, the author has completely nullified the heroine’s agency in this story. This is an issue because the author at the same time makes a big fuss about how this heroine is feisty and spirited and independent. Why make such a fuss and then keep the heroine from demonstrating these traits?
Instead, I get the story of a heroine that wallows in luxury while claiming that she wants to leave this life of hers behind. At the same time, she’s complete putty in Chatham’s hands because she apparently has no agency over her horny horns either. The moment she’s kissed, ooh, and the moment she gets rogered, ooh-ooh, her brain melts into goo.
In the meantime, Charlotte shows how independent and strong she is by saying she wants to do this, do that, ooh, but when she is challenged by Chatham as to how she will achieve her goals, she just stomps her foot, vexed that someone dares to call her on her crap.
Oh, and her story arc culminates in her finally achieving validation and joy when, at last, because she is married to a noble toff and her clothes and looks finally measure up, she is now accepted by the crowd of privileged tossers that she claims to despise.
It’s pretty embarrassing, really; I actually feel embarrassed for this darling because she is such a fraud.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with a character like Charlotte if the author had not grotesquely misrepresented her like that. The way I see it, this dear would do nicely, probably even better, had she been presented as someone that had been so jaded by being at the receiving end of constant heckling and mockery about her looks and background that she just wants out.
Actually, this aspect of Charlotte is present in this story, so I’m not telling the author how to change the character to my liking. Had the author focused on this and dropped that nonsense about independence and being an American at heart when it comes to the heroine, the darling’s character arc makes more sense, feels more genuine, and most importantly, won’t make Charlotte out to be a disingenuous hack that has no idea what she is talking about most of the time.
As for Chatham, he’s alright, as he just has to be a stereotype without needing to appear dumb like most romance heroines seem obligated to do.
I waver between giving The Devil Is a Marquess two and three oogies, because while the heroine is fundamentally flawed from conception, the story itself is a well-written one and the hero is okay for the most part.
Still, I like this one the most of all the author’s Rescued from Ruin stories that I’ve read to date, so what the heck, three oogies it is.
