Runaway Duchess [Paperback]

Signet Regencies have a firm place in my reading heart. As someone weaned on Georgette Heyer at a young age, I suppose I will always read in the genre although it gets harder these days to find stories of the calibre of The Runaway Duchess. Patricia Oliver is an old favourite of mine and this is definitely one of her very best efforts.

Lady Georgina Bennett was married off at the age of 17 to the Duke of Ware, a friend and contemporary of her father. Although he was certainly kind and generous to her, the marriage lacked passion and when he died after 10 years of marriage, Georgina was sill emotionally a virgin. Her high-on-the-instep father, also a duke, was determined to marry her off again to one of his contemporaries, this time a marquess - another nice but somewhat bloodless man - in fact I wondered as I read this if perhaps he was a homosexual for in those days it was a capital crime and most married to cover it up. Fed up with this and not wanting another dynastic marriage with another man seemingly incapable of awakening her passion, she flees to a cousin living in marital bliss in deepest rural Devon.

One neighbour is Major Jack Hampton, a widower still grieving a little for his late wife and dead child, a man of substance and aristocratic connections but nonetheless a plain "mister" who has a bit of an inferiority complex about it. The sparks fly when Jack and Georgina meet and it's obvious they are meant for each other. However both of these people are truly human and they make false starts, bad judgments and are intermittently unable to see what is in their own and the other's heart. Their flaws are so true to life that you feel their pain at making a muddle of the potentiality of their relationship.

Eventually after the passage of a year or more, Jack and Georgina are able to put things right. Using the theme of A Midsummer's Night Dream, the author skilfully allows them to work through their difficulties and come together in great happiness. I like this author very much. She writes with great charm and skill, never "talking down" to the reader as the quality of her prose is quite beautiful. I liked her H/H because she presented them as very realistic people who make painful mistakes and find it hard to put things right - something that the reader can truly empathise with.

It's a great shame that the traditional regency over the years has generally deteriorated as it got muddled up with regency historicals which are often so badly written and full of cardboard characters. I find myself more and more looking to the old backlists of some of the traditional authors and occasionally find some real gems like The Runaway Duchess. Highly recommended and worth seeking out a copy.

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