Masquerade
Lizzie, a naive country girl, finds herself in a London brothel. She escapes to ply her trade independently in Piccadilly. Then she meets the wealthy Lord Hays, who asks her to be his companion for a week, masquerading in sumptuous gowns at Society functions, while he negotiates a business deal to buy a ship which will participate in the slave trade. Inevitably, she falls in love, but that is impossible. He must marry someone from his own background, and she is not prepared to be his kept mistress. Lizzie is accepted as his companion, and she befriends his servants. She meets people who deplore the slave trade, but cannot persuade him it is wrong.
I was not convinced by the characters: Lizzie’s acceptance of her fate as a prostitute, Lord Hays’ need to use her, or the friendliness of the servants. She came across as the stronger character; Lord Hays was too malleable. What I also found disturbing and misleading was the publicity from the publisher that this novel, set in 1786, took place in ‘Regency London’, twenty-five years before the Regency began. Perhaps the mention of the characters being in ‘Regent Street’ influenced them, and Shaftsbury Avenue also featured, an exact hundred years before this road was opened.
