The Accidental Duchess
by Madeline HunterJove, 2014Madeline Hunter's latest book, The Accidental Duchess, is the fourth book in her Fairbourne Quartet, but a reader coming cold to these books, never having read, for instance, last year's delightful The Counterfeit Mistress, won't for a moment have that annoying feeling of entering a room mid-conversation, and that's a good thing, since no romance reader should miss this final Fairbourne installment.It has a delicious set-up, as all this smart author's books do: Lady Lydia Alfreton, sister to the Earl of Southwaite, is supremely skilled at the gaming tables. "Her uncanny ability to always come out ahead at the tables seemed immoral to those who believe one reaps what one sows," we're told. "Her small fame as a result of her luck smelled scandalous to them."She's unprepared for scandal to come to her, but it does, in the form of a mousy little man named Algernon Trilby, who has a manuscript in Lydia's hand that he considers explosive enough to support his scheme of blackmailing her (her protestations that the pages are from an ill-advised attempt of hers to write a novel don't slow Trilby down for even a moment). He demands ten thousand pounds and wants it more quickly than she can raise it - unless she uses an expedient she'd long since forgotten: a sardonic offer made by dashing, commanding Clayton Galbraith, the Duke of Penthurst that he could best her in a simple one-time-only break of the cards. If he loses, he pays her ten thousand pounds; if he wins, he gets to bed her (yet another reminder that today's Regency romances have parted company with the likes of Barbara Cartland).Penthurst is a cool character, but he's always been fascinated by Lydia, always listened with wary interest when censorious acquaintances describe her:
"During the day she is a sphinx, and unknowable. Here at night she is like a bacchante drunk on wine. She is going to ruin Southwaite if he does not rein her in. Everybody says so. She will ruin herself, and him, and that whole family."
They meet, they cut the cards, and despite drawing the queen of spades, she loses - and The Accidental Duchess is off at a gallop. Suddenly, Lydia - a headstrong and very likeable character at whom more excitable readers will often want to yell - is caught between two dilemmas, the ongoing threat of blackmail and Penthurst's smug assumption that he can at any time, as it were, collect his winnings. Hunter has written half a dozen romances in her career and knows every able way to keep these plates spinning for over 300 pages. Her humor can be clomping at times, but her sharp ear for dialogue compensates, and there are elements of her well-orchestrated conclusion that owe as much to Agatha Christie as Georgette Heyer. A fine conclusion to a fine series.
