Caroline Linden
Blame It on Bath
Avon, $7.99/$4.99 digital
Feb. 28, 2012
A marriage of convenience . . . or of destiny?
Gerard de Lacey is determined to find the man who is blackmailing his family, but with his inheritance and status at risk, a hasty marriage to a wealthy bride also seems in order—just in case things take a turn for the worse. Charismatic and capable, Gerard knows he can win the hand of any lady he chooses. Still, he’s not expecting a rich widow to find him and propose the very thing he wants: a marriage of convenience.
Katherine Howe’s first marriage was one of dreary duty. Now that she’s being pressured to marry her late husband’s heir, she’s desperate for a better option. Gerard de Lacey, with his sinful good looks, charming manner, and looming scandal, fits her needs perfectly. The fact that she’s nursed a secret affection for him only makes it better—and worse. Because Gerard will likely marry her for her fortune—but can he love her for herself, as she loves him?
The marriage of convenience may be the most beloved trope in romance fiction. I count it among my favorites because I love watching a character (usually the hero) awaken to the treasure he/she has married. Caroline Linden’s Blame It on Bath is a wonderful example of the hero’s awakening to the worth of the heroine.
Gerard de Lacey has determined that he needs a rich wife before Katherine Howe approaches him with her surprising proposal. His good looks and charm may not be enough to offset the scandal once the claim of illegitimacy becomes widely known, and so there is pressure to marry soon. Nevertheless, he does have options, and he’s not certain why he accepts the proposition offered by his unusual visitor. He sees Katherine as plain and colorless at first, although their first kiss gives him hope that she is more passionate than her appearance suggests.
Once he decides to accept Katherine’s proposal, Gerard takes charge. The marriage takes place quickly, and he is more than a match for Katherine’s oppressive mother and her first husband’s determined heir. The marriage does nothing to deter Gerard from his primary focus—finding his father’s blackmailer and the evidence that blackmailer may have concerning the clandestine early marriage that could mean Gerard and his brothers are bastards. He is carelessly kind to Katherine and finds her eminently satisfactory in bed, but he has no interest in the kind of emotional intimacy for which Katherine longs. He is completely unaware of how wounding are words like these:
“‘Men are simple creatures, darling,’ he said with a laugh. ‘We want to be well fed, amused, and loved. A good meal, a quality horse race, and a woman waiting in his bed are all it takes to make a man happy. You’ll be a splendid wife.’”
With this assurance, Gerard leaves Katherine in the house he has rented in Bath, oblivious to her dismay, and goes about the business that has brought him to Bath. As the physical intimacy of the couple grows and they begin to spend more time together outside the bedroom, Gerard discovers that he likes his wife, but he continues to see his relationship with her as separate from his real life and the concerns that consume him. He does not even tell Katherine the reason they are in Bath.
“But out of bed, they were still strangers. She still had no idea why they’d come to Bath, although it clearly had something to do with the scandal that was breaking in London. She still knew only the main details of that story since it hadn’t reached the Bath papers, and Gerard didn’t order the London papers. She had gleaned some knowledge of his personal habits and likes, but of his private thoughts and feelings, she knew almost nothing. As much as she told herself it was still early, she felt a bit of despair creeping in. Being close to him, intimately so at nights, was making her want more. Her belief that she could be content with a gradual growth of friendship and affection was suffering severely.”
Gerard gains awareness of the effects of his behavior on Katherine in stages. He admits at one point, after an argument, that he has been ordering her about with no explanations as if he were a commanding officer whose every word should prompt unquestioned obedience.
“A wife was not a soldier. A woman rarely liked to be ordered about. Damn. He’d convinced himself he was sparing her the tedium of his task when really he appeared to be letting ruin overtake them both.”
After this recognition, Gerard does confide more in Katherine. In fact, it is thanks to her idea about how to discover the blackmailer’s identity that he gets his first real break. But that break takes him away from Bath, and when what was to be a brief separation becomes an extended one, he cannot bring himself to write to her explaining his continued absence or to confess how he misses her and longs to be with her. It takes returning to Bath to find his wife has left him to make him understand that he loves her.
His final awakening to her real worth sends him after her. He sees her clearly, understanding at last what Katherine is and what she is not.
“She would never have the stunning looks and vivacious manners that often caught men’s eyes and struck them dumb at first glance—like her mother—but she was something even more appealing at second glance: she was kind and warm and genuinely interested in others. Her wit was quiet but keen, and she never exercised it cruelly. Any man who spent half an hour in her company would quickly agree with Gerard that she was the proverbial hidden pearl with a soft quiet glow rather than the alluring sparkle of some women.”
A handsome, desperate man in search of a treasure eventually discovers his wife is his true good fortune—a “hidden pearl with a soft quiet glow.”
Janga spent decades teaching literature and writing to groups ranging from twelve-year-olds to college students. She is currently a freelance writer, who sometimes writes about romance fiction, and an aspiring writer of contemporary romance, who sometimes thinks of writing an American historical romance. She can be found at her blog Just Janga and tweeting obscure bits about writers as @Janga724.
