Those Endearing Young Charms

One of the more amusing stand-alone Regency period romances by prolific author Marion Chesney. The author writes romantic fiction, mostly humorous regency romances plus one or two set in the Edwardian period, under the name Marion Chesney, and mystery/detective stories such as the Agatha Raisin and Hamish MacBeth series under the name M.C. Beaton. A lot of her novesl are part of a series but many others, including this one, stand on their own. This story begins with the return from the wars of the Earl of Devenham, who had been in love with Mary Anstey ten years before, and she with him. Her parents had not allowed their daughter to accept his previous proposal of marriage when he was the penniless captain Tracey who appeared to have little hope of succeeding to the title and estates, but their attitude changed dramatically when he did inherit, and the wedding is promptly arranged. But although Lord Devenham and Mary Anstey had waited for each other for all that time, when they meet again neither is fully comfortable with the other. Both consider themselves committed to the wedding, and plan to go ahead with it even though both have swiftly realised that they have fallen out of love with each other. Mary confesses her concerns in confidence to the local vicar, not realising that he has loved her hopelessly from afar for nearly as many years as she had been pining for Captain Tracey. But when he realises that she still considers herself honour bound to go ahead with the marriage, he is too honourable to try to talk her out of it. However, another person is less scrupulous. Mary's younger sister Emily is so like her, apart from hair colour, that they might be twins. Emily knows she can pass for her sister, and is convinced that the planned marriage will be a disaster for both parties. So Emily comes up with an insane plan: put a sleeping draught in Mary's drink on the morning of the wedding, take her place for the ceremony, and then have the marriage declared invalid when the Earl realises he has been given Leah for Rachel and gives up on the Anstey family in disgust. But things were not to go quite as Emily planned ... Marion Chesney's writing can be very funny and this is definately one of the more entertaining, if less plausible, of her novels. It had me laughing out loud in one or two places. The main weakness, as with so many stories in the romantic genre, is that to create obstacles between the hero and heroine, the author usually ends up making one of them do a number of things which are so daft that you wonder if the other party would not be better off walking away. In this case it is the heroine who frequently treats the hero in such ludicrous ways that the reader is in danger of wondering whether being married to such a lunatic is not a happy ending. Fortunately the book still works because most of the scrapes Emily gets into are quite funny. Although Lord Devenham is obviously not the kind of man who would really offer

Emily Anstey noticed with consternation that her beloved sister Mary dreaded marriage to Earl of Devenham. Though the pledge to marry had been made out of love 10 years ago, both wished they had not made it as the wedding neared. Even though Mary was now in love with another, she is honor bound to go through with it. What else for Emily to do, but to go in her sister's place.The premise of switching places in a wedding ceremony seems too incredulous, even for a Regency Romance. But Marion Chesney (MC) explains Emily's silly, but nonetheless, sweet character and how she plays out the part of the heroines in her Romance novels, very reminiscent of young Catherine in Austen's NorthAnger Abbey, MC is forgiven. And when MC makes reference to Duke of Wellington's true life long courtship, you realize that the derivitive plot is merely a vehicle to get Emily and Peregrine (Devenham) together in a quasi-marriage of convenience. It is there where the real fun begins. Emily finds herself outgrowing her old dreamy girlhood, into a useful countess, managing her husband's estate, but finding it increasingly more difficult to manage as his wife when his mistress is looming in the background.MC knows how to depict a sweet and romantic marriage courtship. Emily is heartachingly vunerable not only as a Cit's daughter marrying a formidable earl, but as a young woman ruled more by her heart than her head. The sweet part is when Devenham finds that he is not impervious to this endearing young charmer, and endeavors to capture the heart of his wife more than his former mistress. This book is one of MC's more quaint novels because of the lovable characters, not to mention the YEOWLING cat! It's too, too funny!