Library's review
Adam Deveril is a captain in the British Army, fighting under the Duke of Wellington in France, in the waning days of the first Napoleonic War. Shortly before Napoleon abdicates and peace is declared, Lynton is forced to sell out and return home. His father, Viscount Lynton, has died in a hunting
Deveril's financial advisor and others urge him to consider marrying a rich merchant's daughter to ensure his family's future, but he had earlier fallen in love with a beautiful young noblewoman and can't imagine life with anyone else. It doesn't take long for him to realize that he has no choice, and so in short order he winds up married to Jenny Chawleigh, a shy, plain, plump young woman whose father is both the richest man in London and a vulgarian whose blunt ways set Adam's teeth on edge.
This is Heyer, so we know there will be a happy ending. But it's not the one you might have expected at the outset, and there's much less of the author's trademark slang-soaked slapstick along the way. A Civil Contract presents a view of the aristocracy and the merchant class of Regency London that virtually none of her other books do, and it's deeply satisfying to see familiar character types from different angles. The hero is not perfect, and neither is the heroine, but the author's plotting and personality profiles are as close to perfection as she ever got, in my opinion. Enthusiastically recommended.
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accident and left a severely debt-ridden and mortgage-encumbered estate, along with two young daughters who need husbands and a wife to whom the word 'economy' is unknown. Deveril's financial advisor and others urge him to consider marrying a rich merchant's daughter to ensure his family's future, but he had earlier fallen in love with a beautiful young noblewoman and can't imagine life with anyone else. It doesn't take long for him to realize that he has no choice, and so in short order he winds up married to Jenny Chawleigh, a shy, plain, plump young woman whose father is both the richest man in London and a vulgarian whose blunt ways set Adam's teeth on edge.
This is Heyer, so we know there will be a happy ending. But it's not the one you might have expected at the outset, and there's much less of the author's trademark slang-soaked slapstick along the way. A Civil Contract presents a view of the aristocracy and the merchant class of Regency London that virtually none of her other books do, and it's deeply satisfying to see familiar character types from different angles. The hero is not perfect, and neither is the heroine, but the author's plotting and personality profiles are as close to perfection as she ever got, in my opinion. Enthusiastically recommended.
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Description
Can the wrong bride become the perfect wife? Adam Deveril, the new Viscount Lynton, is madly in love with the beautiful Julia Oversley. But he has returned from the Peninsular War to find his family on the brink of ruin and his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt. He has little choice when he is introduced to Mr. Jonathan Chawleigh, a City man of apparently unlimited wealth and no social ambitions for himself-but with his eyes firmly fixed on a suitable match for his only daughter, the quiet and decidedly plain Jenny Chawleigh.
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1961