Reviews

Read this many years ago and decided to revisit it - have to say I did not find it quite as enjoyable as I remembered.

The incredibly beautiful Miss Fiona Sinclair is brought from Edinburgh to London by her guardian Mr Roderick Sinclair in attempt to marry her to the highest bidder. Mr Sinclair had been anticipating inheriting a fortune from his brother, when all he actually inherits is the guardianship of Fiona who appears to be extremely naive and simple. They rent a London house which is being offered for a cheap rate because it is supposedly cursed and is usually inhabited only by the servants, all of whom are kept there, on very low wages, by the villainous agent of the property. Fiona implausibly sets her heart on a misogynistic Earl, an aim in which she eventually succeeds (hardly feel this is a spoiler in this type of book).

Although the edition I read was published in 2013, the original publication date was 1986. I think this is why I did not enjoy it as much as I did on previous reading, which was much nearer to the original date. The story moves along quite nicely, the main characters are quite appealing and there is humour in there. But two things rather let the story down for me. The first was when Fiona, taking tea with a society lady, comments on the footmen, who are men of colour; I think Beaton is just parroting Regency attitudes to such servants and Fiona says nothing hugely offensive it is just that she appears to regard the men as pieces of fashionable furniture. The second thing that didn't sit well with me is that there are two instances of attempted rape. The second is sort of germane to the plot and the attempt never really gets anywhere. However the first occurs

Spoiler

when the Earl discovers Fiona in his bedroom and thinks she is stealing his jewellery; this leads him to lock the door and start undressing as he intends to take the value of the jewels out of her body; oddly, this little scenario is supposed to illustrate that he is madly in love with her but resisting it. He does stop when she manages to explain why she is really there but not before he has ripped the bodice of her dress away leaving her breasts exposed

. I suspect this scene was included beacause the book was first published when the bodice ripper genre very popular, although Beaton hardly seems comfortable even writing it.