Sophia Nash
Between the Duke and the Deep Blue Sea
Avon/Feb. 28, 2012/$7.99 paperback, $4.99 digital
Six Regency heroes—One royal hangover
An infamous night has been lost to memory. The scandalous Dukes of the Royal Entourage must make amends. The first step is a heroic rescue.
One of England’s most disreputable peers, Alexander Barclay, Duke of Kress, has stumbled upon a perfect opportunity for redemption. Having been exiled to Cornwall by the Prince Regent himself, Barclay discovers lovely Roxanne Vanderhaven clinging to the edge of a cliff, stranded there by her murderous blackguard of a husband . . . just waiting to be rescued.
Back on solid ground, Roxanne is desperate for a new life—once she’s retaliated for her husband’s despicable actions. Surprisingly, she finds herself drawn to her unlikely champion, certainly the last man in England she could count on. Yet, the infamous Duke of Kress isn’t quite the scoundrel he seems. .
Between the Duke and the Deep Blue Sea is the first book in Sophia Nash’s new series about six peers who party too heartily in company with the Prince Regent and create a scandal that leaves Prinny with a PR problem of major proportions. It’s an interesting premise, and Alexander Barclay, Duke of Kress, is an intriguing hero. But it is the heroine, Roxanne Vanderhaven, who makes the book extraordinary.
Class differences are not exactly rare in romance. I’ve read many a novel in which a beautiful commoner captures the affections of a titled aristocrat, and after overcoming obstacles, the two achieve their HEA. In Roxanne, Nash creates a commoner who becomes a countess, but the story of her marriage ends in misery and attempted murder. The reader and the hero first meet Roxanne as she is clinging to the side of a cliff, in danger of plunging to her death. Her fall was engineered by her husband who wants her wealth but, after eight years of marriage, longs to be rid of a wife who is an embarrassment to him. Neither the money she brought to her husband nor the title she acquired through marriage has proved enough to win Roxanne acceptance into aristocratic circles. She remains the daughter of a copper and tin miner and thus is deemed unfit for the society into which she has married.
Roxanne married her handsome earl with expectations of a fairy tale life, but the reality is a life of isolation and accommodation that has distanced her from her past and even from her very self.
“She had tried for so long to ignore that her husband had slowly undermined her vibrant, confident outlook on life. Each week, each month, indeed, each year he had chipped away at her dignity until she had sometimes begun to doubt her actual self-worth.”
When the new Duke of Kress saves her life, she realizes that she has little choice but to ask for the help of this stranger. She has no family, no friends, no power.
“Alone. This was how it felt to be totally and completely alone—cut off from all she had ever known. God, she realized she had absolutely no one to whom she could turn. She had been swimming against a tide of ill-will swelling from the small, tight-knit group of aristocrats’ daughters and wives for the last eight years. Everyone knew her dog was her best friend. Worse, she had isolated herself from her father’s acquaintances to appease her husband. And now she was at the mercy of a gentleman and stranger who could change his mind at any given moment.”
It is in these dire circumstances that Roxanne begins to reclaim the qualities that make her the person she is. Alex is no knight riding to the rescue; he has sufficient problems of his own, having lost his fortune and his closest friend in addition to being exiled from London to this time of “moldering away in a rotter of a sea castle.” He wants Roxanne and her problems away from his home, and the sooner, the better. He is skeptical of the success of her plan, and yet, despite himself, he is captivated by her valor and strength. He tries to persuade himself that her appeal lies in the beauty he sees in her, but Roxanne’s appeal is more dangerous to him than physical beauty that he could find in other women who better meet the qualifications for his bride.
“Oh, hell, it had nothing to do with her appearance—he’d had dozens of simpering, blue-eyed, blond females hang on his every ridiculous utterance.
“He knew what it was about her. Her courage. Her relative cool-headedness despite her ordeal. Every other female he knew would have at least had a fit of the vapors or clung to him like a flea on a dog. She had pluck, this one.”
Free from the disapproval of her husband and his social circle, Roxanne regains her confidence. The duke’s rank is higher than her husband’s, and he has her safety in mind. Yet she refuses to be blindly obedient to his commands. Her choices may be unwise at times, but she makes her own decisions. Some readers may fault her for assuming the disguise of a gravedigger in order to attend her own burial, but I found it understandable and in keeping with the self she is newly asserting.
Every time Roxanne acts on her own initiative rather than following his instructions, Alex is reminded of why she is wrong for him. At thirty-four, she is two years his senior. Childless after eight years of marriage, her fertility is suspect, and she is a miner’s daughter. Even when she is unexpectedly freed from the bonds of matrimony, she is the antithesis of the bride he has been ordered to choose: “young, fertile, rich, aristocratic.” Physically, she is unlike the women Alex has always preferred. None of these things prevent his falling in love with her.
“He sighed and finally admitted the truth of it. He was attracted to her because of the absurdities she wasn’t afraid to utter during any and all occasions. She would not kowtow; she would not flirt. She was two parts utterly female to two parts friend and, one last part, enchanting, annoying witch.”
They both see the impossibility of their relationship. One of my favorite scenes occurs at a moment when they confess their love for one another but understand that love doesn’t change their reality.
“‘Please,’ she said grasping his hand. ‘No matter what happens. It is better to know it. And to say it.’
‘Well, then . . . I love you,’ he said, staring at her. ‘Je t’adore. Bloody hell, Cherie. Je t’aime.’”
Since this is romance, the impossible is made possible, of course, but I closed the book not only satisfied with the HEA but also impressed with Nash’s deft handling of class differences, differences that neither money nor love can totally eradicate.
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.
