The Secret Wedding by Jo Beverly

The Secret Wedding by Jo Beverly (Published by Signet, April 4, 2009)
Sixteen year old Lieutenant Christian Hill learns of another officer's plans to ruin a besotted 14-year old heiress, forcing marriage to appropriate her considerable funds. Hill's knight errand plan goes awry when during his attempted rescue of the Miss Dorcas Froggatt, he is forced to kill the blackguard. Cries of murder immediately arise as Miss Froggatt's domineering Aunt Abigail arrives on the scene. In order to save her niece's reputation, Aunt Abigail threatens Hill with the gallows unless he marries her. Knowing he will be leaving the continent in a few days to fight in the French and Indian War, and seeing no way out, he reluctantly exchanges vows with the frightened Dorcas. He leaves with his regiment shortly thereafter and completely puts this unfortunate affair out of his mind.

Ten years later . . . Christian Hill has inherited a title and is now known as Viscount Grandiston. Dorcas has dropped her first name, and is now using her middle name Caro. Both parties have been told the other is dead. Christian becomes concerned when he learns that someone is making inquiries about him and wonders if his child bride is indeed deceased. Caro wants to marry, but has no real proof her soldier husband is truly deceased. When Viscount Grandiston visits Caro's family's business, neither of them recognize the other. Caro believes he is her husband's heir who is after her inheritance. She masquerades as a married woman in order to extricate information from Viscount Grandiston. The two are involved in a series of mishaps and adventures together and inevitably fall in love. However, Caro does not want to give up her independence nor her inheritance, which her family worked many years in trade to obtain. Herein lies the conundrum.

I enjoyed the interactions of the two main characters in the beginning of the book through their adventures. There is one terrifically amusing incident involving a vicious killer "Hessian cat-rabbit." And, the Marquess of Rothgar, the ever powerful patriarch of the Malloren family, along with his feisty and independent wife, Diana, Lady Arradale, do play their parts in this story. I always enjoy a visit with Rothgar and Diana. However, there were several factors in this book that overwhelmed my entire enjoyment of the story.

Try as I might, I could not like Caro. I could understand her fear of someone trying to take her family's inheritance from her, especially in England's Georgian period, but she takes it to the extreme and I could not find any sympathy for this selfish, greedy woman. Christian is constantly getting her out of serious scrapes, and she is anything but grateful. She convinces herself that she will be able to work things out and marry Christian, who she still believes to be her husband's heir. But, as soon as she learns the truth about him, she completely changes her mind. While, all along, it is she who has been making up one lie after another. She claims to love the man, but turns around and cries rape in front of witnesses when caught with him and cornered. In addition, her lady's companion is in the act of poisoning Christian to murder him and is thwarted at the last second. Caro is upset about this, but does nothing to make certain that his fanatical would-be murderer is confined so as not to harm another. The end just sort of fizzled out for me with a capitulation on Caro's part.

I love Jo Beverly's books and enjoy her writing immensely. Her books are always historically well researched and witty. This was one book, however, that I will be donating to my local library.