Lord Dancy’s Delight
Amelia Longworth is travelling to England from Macaovia Portugal when she encounters Lord Dancy, returning from military duties on the Peninsula. He saves her from being hurt in an accident. On landing in England, Geoffrey Dancy saves her from a fire. After a third time of being saved, Amelia, and her nurse/companion, Chen Mei, decide Amelia belongs to Geoffrey. Amelia then sees it as her duty to protect him. Someone wants Geoffrey dead so Amelia has plenty of opportunity to annoy him and generally get in his road while she and Chen Mei watch over him.
All of which allows for plenty of action and a number of crises, all of which would be good fun for Regency devotees if the plotting of events were better structured: less frequent, less abruptly resolved, better written. Amelia’s and Geoffrey’s relationship never really convinces, with Geoffrey’s inexplicable mood swings and a lack of sexual tension between the two characters. Chen Mei is a more convincing character, even if she does speak with a stereotypical (and slightly offensive) ‘Chinee’ vocabulary. A pity, too, that the cover is mawkish and insipid.
