#TBRChallenge 2020: The Lady Flees Her Lord

The Book: The Lady Flees Her Lord by Ann Lethbridge

The Particulars: Historical romance, 2008, Sourcebooks, Out of Print, Rights Reverted / Available Self-published digital edition

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: According to my notes I picked up the Sourcebooks edition of this historical romance (published under the author's Michele Ann Young name) at RWA 2009 (Washington D.C.). So yes, this book has been in my TBR for over 10 years. Don't hate the player, hate the game.  Anyway, I know I picked this up because, if memory serves, Sourcebooks was fairly new to the whole romance thing at the time and I knew that Young was also Ann Lethbridge, who I was familiar with from her work with Harlequin Historical.  So taking a flier to pick up this book, for free, seemed like a safe bet.  Ahem, even if it did languish in my TBR for 10 years....

The Review: I haven't read many historical romances so far in 2020 and this one went down like comfort food.  Like if macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes had a baby.  It didn't hold a lot of surprises, and it gets a wee melodramatic at the end, but the pages easily turned and I liked the characters.  It didn't change my life, but believe me I've stumbled on way worse lurking in the depths of my TBR.

Lucinda, Lady Denbigh is married to a vile man. Oh she once thought she was so lucky - a plump, full-figured gal who bagged a handsome, very eligible man - only to discover he only wanted her for her father's money and to be a broodmare.  Years into the marriage, she's barren, he berates her as a cold fish, and heaps emotional abuse on her.  Worse still, his gambling is out of control and he's fallen in with a distasteful crowd.  She has no choice but to flee in the middle of the night.

Through a series of happenstance she picks up an orphaned infant girl along the way.  Yes, it's the height of melodrama but stick with me here.  Anyway, Lucinda tries to find the child's "mother" fast because she needs to get the heck out of London.  But that doesn't happen, there's no time, and the idea of placing the child in a foundling home turns her stomach.  She's ached to become a mother, so why not now?  Plus the kid provides a certain amount of camouflage. Lady Denbigh, after all, is barren.

Original Cover

She ends up in Kent, renting the dower house from Lord Hugo Wanstead, a fact he only learns after he nearly runs her daughter down with his horse.  Newly returned from the war, where he was injured, Hugo finds his country estate in disrepair thanks to Dear Old Dad.  His injury pains him, he's Brooding with a Capital B, and wants Lucinda gone - only to realize 1) she paid a year's worth rent in advance (which, that's explained) and 2) he's flat broke and his estate manager was desperate for the infusion of cash.

We all know where this is going.  Hugo and Lucinda are a perfect match but she is holding back the mother of all secrets and he's got emotional baggage up the wazoo thanks to his father and a dead wife.  He's in lust with Lucinda from the moment he lays eyes on her - he's a rather large man and she's all soft, lush curves in all the right places.  Soon she's bringing him out of his shell, he's playing Lord of the manor, and everybody in town is taken with her.  But wouldn't you know it? Her past comes back to haunt her. Because of course it does.

This was a quick one-day read for me (and it's single title length - so right book, right time - a true Calgon-take-me-away read) although anytime Lucinda's husband is on page it's a tough go.  I understand that infidelity is a non-starter for a lot of romance readers, but seriously this guy is such an a-hole that you want him to get absolutely everything that's coming to him.  His emotional abuse is hard to read, berating her for her weight, her frigidity, forcing her on a diet etc.  He's also prepared to essentially prostitute her out, which is ultimately what tips the scales to her fleeing in the dead of night. 

Extricating Lucinda from Denbigh was a definite factor in the speed in which I kept turning the pages. This was Regency England, so a woman divorcing a husband, albeit an abusive a-hole of a husband, would not have been easy (heck, it's not easy now) and Lethbridge puts a clever bow on that particular package.  Oh sure, it's the height of melodrama and a bit out of left field but it IS interesting and I'm down with interesting.

The sex scenes got a bit purple for my tastes, but I believe these two crazy kids are well-suited and well-matched, although Lucinda reverting back a bit at the end to damsel annoyed me a tinch.  I liked this world that Lethbridge created, and since republishing this book she's followed it up with a sequel about one of the heroine's brothers.  Good, not great, but time I don't regret spending.

Final Grade = B-