Dls’s Comments (group member since Sep 14, 2010)

Dls’s comments from the Fans of Eloisa James & Julia Quinn group.

Leigh-Ayn time to post the answer!

I definitely don't know it!

This is Judith Ivory's The Indiscretion.

Janga I'm pretty sure you have read this.

Last bit of excerpt:

To her astounded parents she said "I trust hero. That’s not the issue. I just don’t think we’ll make good mates. I know this is going to be hard for you to accept, but I think I’m going to have the baby on my own. It will probably be hard on all of us, but I don’t want to marry hero this way. That would be worse.”

She walked around the chair’s arm and proceeded toward the door; she had things to do.

“What way? I thought this was your way,” hero asked behind her.

“Heroine?” her father called.

“Heroine!” her mother demanded.

“What?” hero asked He sounded desperate. Good. Maybe a little desperation would help him stop being so protective. Commit, Hero. Commit to me. Trust me. And for God’s sake do what I’m going to do: Trust yourself.

I love this scene for so many reasons. It’s truly historical; that is, the reason for the scene is true to the period. I can’t think of another book that shows negotiations over the settlements. I love that it captures how strange it must have been for both groom and bride to be the subject of the negotiations and how behind the mercenary aspects there was, or could be, true parental love. Finally I love that she refuses the marriage and why.

Her father and his solicitor sat at the long table, her father’s main estate agent and amanuensis, plus two bookkeepers. Her mother stood by the window, her back to the room, quietly livid, heroine thought. It had helped heroine that the viscountess had insisted on being present, because the bride also insisted. “The strong women of my house,” her father had grumbled. And hero. He pulled out a chair and sat at the table, as soon as heroine had settled into a stuffed chair near the window off to the side. Hero didn’t wear his hat, but rather a pressed and tailored English suit of clothes, vest, high collar, a necktie, dressed respectfully for the occasion of the groom’s shearing.
Then no, one of the “bookkeepers” turned out to be his solicitor. Likewise, the amanuensis was not her father’s but rather worked for His Excellency the U.S. ambassador extraordinaire and plenipotentiary to Britain. It made heroine frown every time she realized this was hero.
And thus they began: her parents, with their representative army, meant to convey how difficult it would be if hero didn’t cooperate; hero and his representatives, their presence and attitude saying that, if the English intended to drive the American into unfavourable terms by using their position and power here, at the very least he would not go lying down. A marriage contract—forced due to pregnancy—was not the cheerful negotiation it might otherwise have been.

Her father began, “We are all here to assure that heroine is well taken care of in this marriage settlement. I hope we are agreed. It is her welfare that comes first.”

Ah, yes, her welfare. The family drum—let us take care of the weak and defenseless girl. Here’s your tonic. Don’t go out in the cold. You can’t go off to school, because—why?—we love you and you don’t need it. With hero added now, there to save her, who, according to the cowboys she was reading now furiously, really needed a white hat.

Control. She had so little. She should simply accept that. Yet heroine bristled. She crossed her legs one way, then the conversation at the table—dry lawyer conversation—stopped when she kicked up a leg to cross them the other way, the churn of her skirt being loud enough to draw attention.

The weak girl, she kept thinking. What was annoying was that she was weak. Politically. Economically. Her parents were right to worry. A husband could do great harm if the woman and her property weren’t protected from an unscrupulous man. The implication, of course, was horrid as her parents went over everything, point by point. They didn’t know hero, their concerns said. They couldn’t trust him: he wasn’t of their own.

And she was weak, gestationally speaking. Even her powerful parents found her being six weeks pregnant a huge negotiating disadvantage. Though—for the benefit of the solicitors and other strangers involved—no one was mentioning her state. So English. So much unspoken. Like code.
Yes, yes, she thought, carry on. I don’t want to raise a child alone. I don’t want to be an outcast. Yes, I’ll marry him. In fact, I love him. I’m in an awkward position (rather like last night, sh thought, amused by the irony).

So, she listened at first, as her father, mother, and hero discussed the marriage arrangements. Money, property, who received what, what she had coming, what they would give. Business. Hero accounted for his money. Billions. She thought she’d heard wrong and asked for the number of zeroes. Nine. Which, at first, made everyone else in the room look at each other. In Britain, a billion had twelve. Only a small cultural misunderstanding, however. In America a billion did have nine zeros, and hero was nigh onto the tenth And, given his assets and their growth, why, in time, it might well become a British billion. Meanwhile, he had property in Texas, Massachusetts, Illinois and Virginia. Rich as Rockefeller, in fact, for which –oh, hero of the insane modesty—even apologized.
“I know I told you, heroine, I wasn’t as rich as John D. I was surprised myself when these wires came in this morning. It’s that daggone oil on my land and the partnership I got into a year or two ago.” He shook his head.
So did her parents. Their information had been old. As hero liked to say, things sure could change quickly in that growing, thriving country on the other side of the Atlantic.

When her father couldn’t complain, when in fact he’d been left speechless for the third or fourth time after being handed telegraph wires, bank statements, evidence of stock certificates, bonds, partnerships, corporations, the viscount grew gruff and slightly impossible. “And you have to live here,” he asserted.

Hero frowned. “I can’t. I mean, I can live here a lot—we can—but I can’t be chained here. I like what I do with the State Department. “

Her father brought his bottom lip up, tight against his upper. “And her property? What do you intend to do with her property? You can’t carry England with you as you travel the world. She comes with a house in London, an estate near York. How will you manage those?”

“I-ah-I don’t know. I haven’t even seen them. I’ll get to them as I can.”

The viscount wasn’t happy.

“You certainly have a modest life style for so much money,” her mother said over her shoulder from where she stood by the window.

“Do I?” hero smiled, then dared a glance in heroine’s direction. “I think she’s going to be expensive. I’m glad I have it.”

Insane. Indeed, heroine thought, hero had a crazy streak in him. A streak she understood by extrapolation: She certainly knew lately what it was to be angry with herself, but he was hard on himself most of the time; he couldn’t stop. He didn’t fret or cry. Hero became angry; and, when in emotional pain, he sometimes distracted himself by running someone over the rails.

While a voice inside him was always running hero over them. She could have sympathy for him, but—she had to own up-she couldn’t do anything about it.

Control, she thought again. Oh, how very little I have.

Her parents segued into wedding arrangements.

“I’ll marry her anywhere,” hero said.

“If you show up,” her mother threw from across the room. Oh, she was seething—forced into a monied match, so lucrative in the filthiest sense: Goodness, some of his riche was so nouveau he hadn’t even counted it yet.

“I’ll do what’s right,” he told her parents, his face sober at the criticism of his past.

What’s right . The words again struck heroine. “Right,” she said from her chair. “We must all do what’s right. Why, if this got out, it would be an international incident: U.S. ambassador gets House of Lord’s daughter pregnant.”

They all looked at her, her parents and hero chagrined to hear their worst fears put into words. While the solicitors’ eyes widened as they leaned forward—juicy things were going on here, things that could feed a battalion of lawyers. For years.

“Well, don’t worry about me,” she said. “I won’t tell anyone.” To hero “And you needn’t feel you have to marry me.” What was she saying? Everyone blinked. Do right. She didn’t want him to marry her because it was “right”—she didn’t want him to have to swallow anything unpalatable either. She wanted him to live with her, stay with her, because he loved her.

“Why not?” he asked.

“You’re unhappy about it. Businesswise, its turning into a rousting.”

“Well, I have to admit, it would make me happier if you’d own up—“ He stopped, rephrased, “you’re not humble here, heroine—“

“That’s what you want? Humility?” Then she caught what he’d censored and asked, “Own up to what?”

His brow drew down, hero’s quintessential dark look. “It would be ah—it would be nice to hear you admit you—you’re in love with me.”

She wasn’t going to at first. She baulked—he’d admitted nothing, an emotional mute. She caught herself, though. She said quietly, meaning it, “I’m in love with you.” There. It was out.

His mouth opened. He looked down, up, then across the room at the bookshelf, all the while his smile growing. It was lovely to see it. He looked at her parents. “She’s in love with me,” he repeated, as if just to hear the words again.

Quiet reigned in the room for five or six ticks of the mantel clock. Then her father asked “Well?”

“Well, what?” hero asked.

“Do you love her?”

Hero blinked. “I’m marrying her.”

Her father, wiser than heroine had ever given him credit for, grew unceremonious on her behalf. “Listen, you, you—“ He clamped his lower lip over his upper til it was white, bit down a minute, then continued. “Who cares that you intend to marry her. Do you love her?”

Hero blinked as if father were mad to ask the question. “Well, yes,” he said like an obvious fact.

Heroine leaned to sit, her elbows on her knees, at the front of her chair.
Hero stammered, “I—I’ve wanted her, I think, from the moment I first sobered up across from her.” He laughed nervously. It seemed a declaration was forthcoming. Then it wasn’t. He looked down at the papers and said, “ I can’t promise that amount on the Yorkshire property until l see it. Its too much. I could buy and sell half the places in England for that.”

Her father immediately took exception—you couldn’t buy what heroine’s property was. Heritage, tradition, England… And they were all at it again, her father adding “One of the reasons we don’t like an outsider marrying our daughter is you will take her away from us.” .An outsider. Don’t take her away. It was the burden and pleasure of being well-loved. Then he came back to, “And you aren’t marrying her if we can’t work out the terms and part of the terms are that you love her.”

Testy, hero snapped, “Which is actually none of your business.”

Her father stood, his chair scraping back. “Whether you will care for my daughter is most certainly my business. If you aren’t smart enough to love her, you can’t have her. Not even in her present which condition, which you”—he leaned across the table—“couldn’t have been thinking too clearly about when you put her into it.”

Hero’s eyes narrowed. Then he said in as rapid fire drawl as she had ever heard from him, “Well, for God’s sake, of course I love her. I love her. I’m delirious. I’m wild for her. Why else would I marry her?”

“She’s pregnant.”

“Fine. I love that she’s pregnant. I love her. I’m in love. I’m very in love. I’m head over heels. Is that enough?”

From her chair, heroine blew out a long flummoxed sigh and stood up. Enough.

She herself had butted heads with everyone here, trying to maintain her independence, just as hero was doing. Yet the heart of such struggle was wrong. They were both calling contrariness independence, when these weren’t the same thing. She didn’t have to fight for control of her life. She only needed to take it, have it, live it.

“Excuse me,” she said. “These negotiations and this marriage are off. I don’t want them.” She took a deep breath. “Hero, you find it easy enough to humiliate me in front of people, then you dicker over terms, while you can’t even say you love me in a civilized fashion. I want someone who can proclaim he loves me to the world, without shame, despite the fact that I’m far from perfect. I need your loving gestures to be as large as your mean ones. Which I am beginning to believe is a lot like coupling between a man and a woman: to have the most fun one can’t cling to a lot of ceremony.”

Me neither

I just finished To Have and To Hold by Lauren Layne .

This is one of the books where one of the main characters does something that the other seems totally unacceptable and I'm left thinking "ok this isn't how I would have handled it but it really isn't that bad..." Which makes it hard to care emotionally about the resolution . I also didn't think the background for why he acted like that was particularly compelling.

It's probably not a great sign that I liked the hero's sister better than either of the main characters and didn't get any real feeling for the two women who will get their own books later.

It wasn't terrible but it also didn't capture me much. Admittedly some of that is probably that I don't like big extravaganza weddings so that made it hard to buy in . But I liked 2 of the books in Nora Roberts series about wedding planners...so there is more to it than that.

I just read this!
Also Aly maybe you want to change August to September in the thread name?

Yay Rookie Move!

If you are serious about reading in series order then yes start with Puffin Island.
That is actually a bridge from a prior series but I can't remember which and I don't think it matters but the Puffin Island/Manhattan stuff is more intertwined.

I also really like her two baseball books.

I don't know why. There are wonderful witty romance novels that make me laugh out loud without ever making fools of either (Austen, Heyer, Loretta Chase, Julia Quinn) and there are deeply moving romance novels where I am with the heroine every step of the way (Balogh, Seidel, Ruth Wind/Barbara Samuel/Oneil, Mayberry, Morsi)--none of whom make fools of their lead characters even when they make big mistakes.
It drives me nuts.

Manda dignity is exactly right. She puts Rachel
In Dream a Little Dream through a lot but she keeps her dignity. But a lot of her heroines do not. (It's actually my problem with Kristin Higgans as well--I'm not fond of laughing at the heroine and why are the men never idiots? They make mistakes but don't lose their dignity.)

This is a week of new releases for me; the new Jody Thomas, Laura Guhrke, and Sarah Morgan as well as Vanessa Kelly. Theoretically also Ben Aaronovitch but so far it hasn't downloaded on my nook.

I admired Steadfast but wasn't in love with it or caught up in the characters the way I feel about the Ivy books--or even her first three. And I guess Audrey in Bittersweet also bothered me for the same lack of competence. She is supposed to have put herself through culinary school so why make her look like an idiot? I know the employer is supposed to be awful but you can show that without making her a fool.

Love this book! My favorite by this author!

Hi all:
Please check back later for this week's puzzler. Cherie says the Internet is down where she is and she will post as soon as it's back up
Deb

Just finished the new SEP.
I read heroes are my weakness recently and liked it; This one hasn't clicked for me. But I often find I like her books better the second time so who knows.
Although I am getting annoyed with the frequency she has a superstar Hero and a screw up heroine. My favs of hers are where the relationships are more equal...and more complex (like Nobody's baby but mine).

Who published it Janga? B & N doesn't have it.

It's an old Susan Mallery--Good Husband Material.

I have been reading her back list lately and also working my way through a bunch of DNFs. Tomorrow I start the new SEP...

Wow. What a wonderful scene. I have no idea what the book is.
I just started a book where the hero (a police officer) walks into a bank robbery and tells the bank robber that the woman he is holding hostage left him standing at the altar. When the robber offers to kill her, the police officer says "That's mighty neighborly of you but I think I'd rather deal with her in my own way, in my own time."

Be interesting to see where this goes!