Shoutout to Narfna for bringing this book to my attention! This was a very entertaining novel that contains three exciting adventures featuring a highly unusual woman in Regency England. Lady Augusta Colebrook is forty-something, single, and a member of the noble class. She and her fraternal twin sister Lady Julia are well connected and well liked in London society, but then again very few people know about their private activities. When we meet Augusta (Gus) and Julia, they are attempting to help a married friend by retrieving compromising letters from her former lover. Soon, Gus will find herself the “go-to” person for women in trouble, and she will find herself falling for the roguish outlaw Evan Belford, a lord on the run from the law. Through Gus’s first three cases, we see her dangerous relationship with Evan turn into love, and we learn about the many ways women in the Regency period could be controlled, exploited and even killed without any means to protect and save themselves.
The novel opens with Gus and Julia sneaking off from a concert to meet Lady Charlotte’s lover. The deal is to exchange jewels for the incriminating letters he has, and even though things go awry, cool-headed Gus saves the situation. We learn that Gus is the eldest of three children, that Julia is smaller and quieter than Gus but that the sisters are devoted to one another. Julia seems to have a photographic memory, which will serve the sisters well as they investigate crimes. Julia is also grieving the death of her fiancé and she suffers from a serious health issue (breast cancer). Their younger brother Duffy has inherited the estate after their father died ignominiously in a brothel. Thanks to their successful mission, Lady Charlotte asks Gus and Julia to help rescue a woman whose husband is believed to be slowly killing her because she has not produced any children. This is Case #1, and it shows how women — even wealthy, privileged women — had very little in the way of rights; they go from being ruled by fathers to being ruled by husbands, or by brothers if fathers and husbands are lacking. It is through this case that Gus encounters a highwayman who is none other than Evan Belford. Evan was convicted of murder 20 years ago as the result of a duel, and he had been sent to the colonies for penal servitude, but he is back in England, living the life of a thief because, we learn later, he needs to help his sister. At any rate, when Evan tries to hold up the Colebrook sisters’ carriage, he gets more than he bargained for and ends up joining them on their case to liberate the imprisoned wife. Gus and Evan seem to be falling for each other but everyone, especially Julia, knows that this is an untenable situation with a man wanted by the law. Logic and reason say that they should forget each other, but this is a regency romance!
Case #2 involves child kidnapping and a terrible “cure.” It was thought that those who suffered from “the pox” could be cured by sleeping with a virgin. As a result, unscrupulous people would kidnap female children and sell them into sex slavery. In this case, the Colebrook sisters’ butler Weatherly needs their help. Weatherly, a Black man, has been secretly supporting Miss Finchley’s orphanage for girls. Miss Finchley takes in girls rejected by others: the infirm, the deformed and “colored” girls. When Miss Finchley reveals that 12-year-old Jean-Marie has been taken by the slavers, Weatherly is prepared to go it alone, but Gus won’t hear of it. She writes to Evan in the hopes that he will help them but when he refuses, Gus decides she will enter the brothel dressed as a man to save the child. This is an exciting adventure with surprise actions from a number of characters. At the end of this case, Gus has been injured and it is clear that the police (in the person of Bow Street Runner Mr. Kent) and others are looking for Evan in order to serve him up to justice (hanging). Mr. Kent, the cop, is a handsome man who seems attracted to Julia (and it may be likewise). Meanwhile, Gus has been trying to do research into Evan’s crime in order to clear his name, if possible.
Case number three is the best, in my opinion, and the one that had me cringing most. Evan has reached out to Gus for help and we discover why he ran from servitude back to England. His younger brother, who became Lord Deele when Evan was convicted, had their sister Hester committed to a private mental institution because she is a lesbian. Hester’s lover has gotten word to Evan about the situation. The institution is closed to the public so no one can go in and see the horrid conditions. It is not even clear if Hester is still alive. Evan hatches a plan to take a position as the porter at Bothwell House (the institution) but he needs Gus to play his wife, Mrs. Allen, and to serve as matron there. The goal is to go in, find Hester and get her out, but of course it gets complicated. This case gives a lot of fascinating and disturbing detail about the treatment of people with mental illness in the early 19th century. The tenseness surrounding the rescue mission is complicated by the arrival of Mr. Kent and the need to rescue all the women imprisoned in this house of horrors.
This novel was a quick read and really well researched. If historical fiction is your thing, and regency England, you will want to pick it up. The author in her afterward discusses her historical research (she does incorporate real people into her stories) and her love of regency romance, particularly the works of Georgette Heyer. The over-arching unfolding romance between Gus and Evan is delightful and promises to get even more interesting in book 2, which I hope will be coming out soon!