The Disdainful Marquis

Another Layton heroine who is down on her luck and looking for work, this time as a lady's companion. Catherine is hired by the Duchess of Crewe, but wonders fairly soon why her employer doesn't seem to want her to do anything for her. Until the Duchess announces that she is taking Catherine to Paris, and buys her several very risque dresses...What Catherine doesn't know is that the Duchess likes to achieve notice and notoriety, and that she makes a habit of doing that by hiring courtesans as her companions. The more men her companions sleep with, the more of a talking-point the Duchess is. However, Catherine only finds out what is going on when she's already on the way to Paris; since she has no money and no-one to appeal to for help, she's stuck.St John (pronounced Sinjun, and this is the way Layton writes the name), Marquess of Bessacarr, noticed Catherine when she first entered the Duchess's employ, but he assumes her to be no better than her predecessors. He and Catherine keep running into one another, but he refuses to allow himself to give in to her attractiveness; after all, he thinks, she's a lightskirt and thus not worth his time. So, instead, he teases and taunts her, thus making her distrust him instead of asking him for help.Until several things happen: St John finally gives in and makes Catherine an offer of carte blanche, which she refuses and at the same time tells him that she's an innocent; Catherine becomes the target of a Revolutionary officer's desires, and again refuses; the officer conspires to buy her from the Duchess, ensuring that she has no safe haven in Paris. At that point, she has no other choice than to accept help from the cynical Marquess.I didn't particularly like Bessacarr in The Duke's Wager; he seemed a very selfish individual, only concerned with his own interests and heedless of anyone else's desires. It was clever of Layton to set this book several years later, since her 'reform' of Bessacarr was very credible. He'd matured a lot in the interim; he no longer cared about his image to the exclusion of all else, and he'd learned the value of helping other people. As a result, he became a likeable romantic hero.Another very readable book from Layton!

Edith Layton is one of my favorite authors for both Regency and historical novels. The Marquis of Bessacarr is a classic cynical hero and Layton's gift for characterization brings him to life. The heroine is believably innocent and manages to get herself into a great deal of trouble. Some of the same characters show up in The Duke's Wager and The Abandoned Bride, so it's fun to read all three books to see how Layton will match up each hero with the perfect woman. (Layton often "follows up" secondary characters into new books - it's one of her charms, along with her spicier love scenes.)