The Liz Carlyle Family Reunion

Reading Liz Carlyle is eventually like going to a big, extended family reunion populated with some very interesting relatives. This is not a complaint. Nobody does interrelated characters as well as Liz. And boy are there plenty of interrelations. My favorite uncle, George Kemble, who is not related to many but is involved with a surprising number of them, usually turns up at the reunion. Let’s pour Uncle George a nice Cognac and have him take us through a few of the families with which he is involved.

We first meet George Jacob Kemble in My False Heart, Liz Carlyle’s first book. Kemble is valet to the book’s bad-boy hero, Elliot Armstrong, Marquis of Rannoch. 

Exhaling a long column of smoke, Elliot stared up from his chair in veiled amusement at the willowy, middle-aged man who now stood sniffing disdainfully before him. Kemble, who made no secret of his abhorrence of cigar smoke, flailed a cambric handkerchief ineffectually back and forth in a gesture designed  solely, as they both knew, to annoy the marquis. 

Kemble is wonderfully outspoken and opinionated, but apparently so good at what he does that Elliot is willing to put up with him. 

The next two delightful books in Liz Carlyle’s oeuvre are A Woman Scorned, introducing us to the Cameron and Amherst families (who we will see in later books) and Beauty Like the Night, where we meet the Rutledges. 

We do not see George Kemble again until Carlyle’s fourth, A Woman of Virtue, in which he appears in David, Lord Delacourt’s bedchamber. David, you should know, is half-brother to Jonet Cameron, whom we met in A Woman Scorned. Kemble has been sent by The Marquis of Rannoch (remember him from My False Heart?), at Jonet’s request, to straighten David out. And our dear Kemble is more than up to it. 

“Now let us understand one another, my lord,” he firmly began, giving another haughty hand toss. “I have a reputation to uphold. I shall agree to work here. But in return, you must agree not to go running about town rigged out like some overdressed Bow Street Runner. I simply cannot abide it.”

No True Gentleman has one of my favorite heroes, Max de Rohan, displaced Alsatian nobleman, former  River Policeman, now working for the Home Office, who travels with a huge dog. His heroine is Catherine Wodeway, sister to Cam and Bentley Rutledge (whom we met in Beauty Like the Night), the latter of whom bitterly objects to Catherine’s relationship with Max. By now, Kemble has left the valet business is now a Purveyor of Elegant Oddities and Fine Folderol. He first appears in this book as an inscription in the front of The Fine Gentleman’s Etiquette, a book which he has given to Max.

Dear boy,

Eventually, a diamond in the rough needs polish.

Yr. most Humble servant,

George Jacob Kemble

Later we learn, that Kemble is also not above doing a little investigating for Max. When they meet at dinner one evening, Max gives him a list of suspects and tells him he will call on him the next day.

At that, Kemble lifted both his brows. “Ooh, well! Call me intrigued!” he answered, tucking the slip of paper back into de Rohan’s hand with another little pat. “Be a dear and do bring Mr. Sisk. One never knows when one will need to sharpen one’s claws on something that’s overstuffed and inanimate.”

The Rutledges reappear in The Devil You Know  This is Bentley Rutledge’s book. His heroine is Frederica D’Avillez, whom we met in My False Heart. Frederica is illegitimate and recently dumped by the man she thought she was going to marry when she runs into Bentley. Although they have known each other for years (both being inhabitants of Terra Carlyle),  something new is kindled at this meeting. What I love about this book is that we have cameo appearances by Elliot (from My False Heart), Max’s mother (from No True Gentleman), and Cole Amherst (from A Woman Scorned) – and, of course, George Kemble (from everywhere). When Bentley decides to court his true love, he turns up at Kemble’s shop asking for help dressing for a ball.

At that, Kemble tossed back his head and laughed. “Oh, my God, there’s a woman in this!” he said, rising then lifting his hands as if to conduct a choir. “Well, up! Up! I owe old Max a favor, Cinderella. So let’s see what we’ve got to work with.

...

Feeling like some great, lumbering ox standing next to Kemble’s svelte figure, Bentley watched as the man swished back and forth, taking inventory. ”My God, you’re tall,“ he muttered. ”Really, what do they feed you Gloucestershire boys? And the cut of that coat – what a nightmare! Have it off and once; Jean-Claude can use it to polish the silver. No, don’t scowl, and give me the waistcoat, too.“

In A Deal with the Devil  our hero is Giles, Lord Walrafen, stepson of Cecilia Lorimar from A Woman of Virtue. (Cecilia’s first husband was much older than she was). Giles falls in love with Aubrey Montford, the housekeeper at Castle Cardow, where he is the absentee owner. He calls  Max de Rohan and (of course) Kemble to the castle to investigate the murder of Giles’s uncle. Aubrey, unfortunately, is the prime suspect. Max drags poor, long-suffering, Kemble to the north of England (and later Scotland) to investigate Aubrey’s background.