A BRIDE FOR HIS CONVENIENCE - Edith Layton
Avon Books
ISBN: 978-0-06-125367-6
December 2008
Historical Romance

Regency England

Though Hannah Leeds's face and figure fall a little short of the current fashion in beauty, she's lively and intelligent, and her wealthy mill-owning father dotes on her and her sisters. One wonders why she's still unwed at three and twenty. She has hopes, however...she's finally met someone who loves her for who she is. Alas, the lover to whom she almost gives her virtue breaks her heart. Hannah loses much of her spark, and when her father proposes a match with a bankrupt lord, she indifferently agrees to it.

Ian, Marquis Sutcombe, has no choice. He must marry to save the estate and to keep his brother in Italy where he's recovering his health. The aristocracy has no need to trade their daughters for a bankrupt title; Ian must look to the wealthy merchant class. His first two interviews are impossible, so he settles on Miss Leeds, who seems a mild sort who should do very well. As for beauty, he has no need to produce an heir; he'll leave that to his brother. Hannah will be happy in the country, while Ian can soon afford to re-enter London's social life. But first he must live up to the bargain he made with Mr. Leeds to introduce Hannah and her sisters to the ton.

The marriage gets off to a bad start when Society happily welcomes Ian back into their midst, but are cold, even rude to Hannah. Now, Ian is an honorable man and not truly unkind, yet he is a cool, controlled aristocrat. Reviewers are not supposed to quote before a work has gone through its final editing, but one passage illustrates both Ian's aristocratic demeanor and Ms. Layton's clever way with words. I love these lines on page 4: He (Ian) was high in the instep and low in his regard for other people's intelligence. While never rude without meaning to be, his eyes and his silence nevertheless spoke volumes about his opinions.

Hannah is not long indifferent to her new husband...oh, my, no. She finds him extremely attractive and gets enough of her spirit back to insist that children are a part of their contract. Theirs might begin as a bargain marriage, but this is no run-of-the-mill marriage of convenience tale. Both Ian and Hannah are complex characters, and it takes them a long time to really understand each other. They are, after all, complete strangers to one another. Ms. Layton uses no easy solutions. She separates them while he rebuilds Hopewell Hall, puts stumbling blocks in their path to happiness in the form of selfish persons, and writes nothing that would be against the natures of Ian and Hannah as they have been already shown.

Hannah's younger sisters are a delight and different enough from Hannah and each other to carry stories of their own. Their father is a good man who has their welfare at heart. Other characters add further interest to the whole.

I've always admired Edith Layton's writing talent and enjoyed her way with plots, characters and motivations. A BRIDE FOR HIS CONVENIENCE is one more of her books you'll want to sink right into. If you relish a really well done historical romance, don't miss this one.

Jane Bowers