When her elderly husband’s inability to sire an heir threatens everyone she cares for, young Rosamunde Overton is forced is forced into a daring deceit at a scandalous masquerade. But then her nerve fails and she flees, ready to give up all hope … until she rescues an injured nobleman who just might be the answer to her prayers.
Although Lord Brand Malloren lives far above the station of the mysterious lady who has taken him captive and captured his heart, he’s only too willing to follow her lead. Rosamunde too has fallen in love, but her reckless plan depends on secrecy. For to reveal herself could cost her everything …
Rating: B-
This was a rather random selection for a prompt in the Days of the Week section of the AAR Back to School Challenge which was to read a book that has in its title the word “Monday”, “Moon”, “dark”, “shade”, or “night”.
I didn’t really have anything in mind, so it was a case of looking through my Kindle books and the paperback pile to find a book which fitted the bill, and this is the one I settled on. The main plotline in this reminded me a little of Grace Burrowes’ Darius and Cecilia Grant’s A Lady Awakened, in that the heroine needs to conceive a child in order to prevent her home and lands being inherited by someone who would not do well by the estate’s dependants. Because her husband is impotent (or dead or dying!), she has to call upon the services of another man to do the deed and complications ensue. Call me odd, but I rather like that particular type of story, so I’d found my challenge book!
I’m aware that the book is the fourth in a series, but I didn’t feel as though I needed to have read the previous books for this to make sense.
Rosamunde Overton has exactly the problem I describe above. Her husband Digby, who is much older than she is, is ailing and should he die without an heir, all his property and fortune will pass to his cousin Edward. Edward plans to turn everything over to the religious sect of which he is a member, called The New Commonwealth, which, as the name suggests, preaches the kind of Puritanism last seen under Cromwell. Should this event take place, not only will Rosa be turned out of her home, but all the tenants will be evicted unless they agree to join the group, and both Rosa and her husband are determined not to let that happen. But Digby is unable to perform his husbandly duties and together, they come up with a scheme whereby Rosa will attend a masquerade party (which were notorious for enabling illicit liaisons as participants are masked), find herself a likely young stud, get the deed done and hope for the best.
However, when push comes to shove (!) she finds herself repulsed by the idea and by the men she has encountered, and heads home, berating herself for her stupidity and cowardice. On the journey, she stops her coach when she sees something lying to the side of the road. The something turns out to be a someone, a man who has clearly suffered some sort of injury, so she has him carried aboard and continues her journey.
The man is young, handsome – and unconscious – and while travelling, Rosa starts to think that perhaps she has found a way to carry out her plan after all. She takes her mystery man to the dower house on the nearby Arradale estate, which belongs to her cousin, Diana.
When the man comes to, he doesn’t remember what happened to him or who he is. He has no external injuries, and he wasn’t drunk – and Rosa comes to the conclusion that he was drugged and left out in the middle of nowhere to die, although she has no idea as to why.
His memory begins to return in snatches, and he eventually remembers that he is Brand Malloren, brother of the Marquess of Rothgar, one of the most powerful and feared men in the country. When his strength returns, Rosa wastes no time in – very awkwardly – asking him to sleep with her. He agrees readily (perhaps a little too readily, given he has no idea where he is or who his mysterious nurse is), thinking that perhaps his lady is a widow, or unhappily married, and that the least he can do by way of thanking her for saving his life is to show her a good time. *g*
Rosa is determined to keep her identity a secret, as nobody can know that any child she bears is not her husband’s, and remains masked at all times – not just to prevent identification, but also to hide the scars running down one side of her face which are the result of a childhood accident.
Rosa and Brand spend only a few days together, but form a very intense connection and fall deeply in love. On their last night together, Brand asks Rosa to leave with him, and it almost kills her to have to refuse. She has already realised that Brand is a very determined man, and that she will have to resort to underhand measures in order to ensure that he is unable to find her once they have parted. With the help of her cousin, Rosa effects Brand’s departure and prepares to return home, hoping that she has conceived and knowing that she will never be the same again.
I admit to thinking at first that what Brand and Rosa were suffering from was a serious case of insta-love; but as I continued to read, Ms Beverley won me over with the way she developed their relationship in ways that didn’t relate to sex. They discovered common interests and shared a sense of humour, and the depth of feeling running between them became so intense that it was easy to believe that there was more to their liaison than lust and the need to conceive.
The first part of the novel worked really well, but as soon as Brand and Rosa were separated, the pacing flagged and I actually put the book down and read something else before getting back to it. Even though Rosa and Diana are forced to greater heights of subterfuge when Rothgar turns up searching for his brother, and there were some great (and sometimes funny) twists and turns as Diana pulls the wool over the eyes of the all-powerful Marquess, I found it hard to regain my earlier enthusiasm for the story.
Fortunately, however, once the ladies have evaded exposure and Brand returns to the picture, the pace picks up again, and there is the addition of a mystery side-plot. Rothgar has actually been asked by the king to look into the New Commonwealth and can see a bigger picture emerging from the things he has learned from his brother and other sources.
Brand continues to search for Rosa, although he is still unaware of her identity. It’s true that he is helped along by a series of co-incidences, but I didn’t think they were so heavy-handed as to be implausible or interrupt the flow of the story. The ending felt a little contrived, as Brand came up with a plan which would enable Rosa to keep her child with her while not giving away the fact that they had conceived it out of wedlock – but it worked.
The characterisation is generally strong, although I did feel that Brand was the least well-rounded of the two protagonists. He’s a lovely, sexy and romantic beta hero, and I thought that his relationship with Rothgar was very well written, but I didn’t feel I really got to know him in his own right. Rosa, on the other hand, was very well developed. Because of the scarring to her face, she opted, at seventeen, to marry a man much older than she was, partly because she wanted to live away from society, and partly because she believed she would never get any other offers. Digby is a kind, attentive husband, who is clearly more of a father figure to her than a husband, but she is happy with him, and it’s clear throughout the novel that she cares for him deeply. Even though she sleeps with another man and discovers a passion she’s never before experienced, Rosa is doing it at Digby’s suggestion and because they both want to prevent the estate from passing into the hands of people who will not take care of it and the people who live there.
In spite of the pacing issues I mentioned above, I did enjoy the book. It was well-written, the relationship between the hero and heroine was quite compelling and I even found myself caught up with the mystery plot concerning the New Commonwealth – unusual for me, because I often find such sub-plots a bit lacking. But overall, Secrets of the Night is an enjoyable romance featuring two sympathetic and honourable protagonists whose struggles to do the right thing and the heartbreak they suffer as a result make their HEA feel all the more justly deserved.
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