The Savage Marquess

A most curious chemistry

Certainly the two should never meet.

The handsome, wealthy Marquess of Rockingham was the most notorious rake in London, as infamous for his violent temper as he was for his intemperate ways.

Miss Lucinda Westerville was a country vicar's daughter, as innocent as she was lovely and as proper as a young lady could possibly be.

Yet when this impossibly matched pair meeting at a glittering ball, they had made the dubious bargain to become man and wife - in name only! But Lucinda found that she had more than she bargained for...when she vowed not to love this untamed, infuriatingly attractive man...when she tried to rein her own foolishly galloping heart...

Original Publisher: Signet
Original Year of Publication: 1988
Page Count: 224

I liked this...right up until I didn't.

The back cover blurb isn't quite accurate. Lucinda Westerville is not a vicar's daughter, but a curate's daughter - which means she's poorer than poor, especially considering the vicar her father works with is a horrid little man who, upon learning that his curate has become deathly ill, decided to cut his wages in half. Now he's sick and destitute, and Lucinda is desperate to do anything she can to earn the money for a physician and medicine. She's already written to her relations, only to be told to stop dramatizing her situation.

So, when a letter arrives from the Earl of Clifton, offering to move Mr. Westerville to Clifton's country seat and send a London physician to care for him, in exchange for Lucinda arriving in London to be a companion for his Society miss of a daughter, both Westervilles (metaphorically) jump at the chance. The Earl's servants arrive to move Mr. Westerville, and to accompany Lucinda to London.

She meets and takes an immediate dislike to her "miss," Lady Ismene. Indeed, this girl is spoiled rotten and snotty to a fault. Her inability to make female friends of her own class (as she believes all females are insanely jealous of her) is why her father had to pay Lucinda to accompany her in polite society. Ismene takes an immediate dislike to Lucinda because she is attractive, and the first thing she orders Lucinda to do is cut her hair.

They are to attend Almack's assembly rooms that evening, so Ismene's maid, Kennedy, quickly makes over a dress for Lucinda (after Ismene comments cattily that none of Lucinda's dresses are fine enough to be seen in public) and has Ismene's French hairstylist cut Lucinda's hair. Of course, the trim only brings out the beauty of Lucinda's chestnut curls, so she hides her new look until the family arrives at Almack's, at which point Ismene can't make a scene. Score one for Lucinda!

This is where she meets the notorious Marquess of Rockingham. He is talk, dark, and dissolute, a complete and total rake. He is a prototype for Lord Dain of Lord of Scoundrels fame, right down to his lack of manners and his lack of caring about such. He is loud, drunk, rude, and irresponsible, mostly because he is bored. He is 35, however, and has decided now is the time to find a wife and start having heirs. He doesn't care who he marries - he'll take the first woman who'll have him - and though he has an aristocratic title and ridiculous wealth, his reputation is fearsome. This is not someone the mamas on the Marriage Mart will be pitching their daughters at.

Anyway - The Marquess spots Lucinda in the corner and asks her to dance, shocking the whole assembly. There is a spark of appreciation between them. Ismene is livid that Lucinda has garnered so much attention, to the point that she wants to send Lucinda home. This worries Lucinda, because she's afraid that if she's fired from this position, her father will be sent home as well, even if he is not well.

As desperate times call for desperate measures, Lucinda decides to make a very bold decision. She overheard the Marquess rambling on about his thoughts on marriage at Almack's, and decides to propose to him. If he marries her, she can secure continued care for her father and escape Ismene's jealousy. The day after meeting him, she goes to his lodgings and proposes to him.

To her shock, he agrees. He also agrees to her moratorium of six months before marital intimacy, and gives her free run of his town home. His string? He wants them to be married that very day, and for her to leave him alone to continue his carousing, dissolute lifestyle. So, he secures a special license, they are married that afternoon, and Lucinda moves into his home that evening after a rather dramatic confrontation with the Cliftons. Rockingham decides to decamp to Paris that same evening so he can go on a bender, leaving Lucinda in an empty, servantless house. Mercifully, Kennedy arrives, having left after Ismene assaulted her, and quickly helps her begin filling the various servant roles.

Now, there are quite a few who are unhappy about Rockingham's sudden marriage, including his mistress, Maria Deauville, and his current heir, Zeus Carter. They decide that they can displace Lucinda, especially after learning about the six month hiatus on consummating the marriage. Unfortunately, they roll out the old chestnut of marriages being easily annulled if they are not consummated (which is completely inaccurate), and make lots of sinister plans based on this idea. Maria sends her maid, Benson, to befriend Kennedy and extract more info about Lucinda.

Rockingham's last deed before sallying forth to Paris is to leave an announcement of his nuptials in the Morning Post, which sends everyone into convulsions, including his mother, the Duchess of Barnshire. The Duchess shows up at Rockingham's house and is shocked to see Lucinda with her sleeves rolled up, in the middle of redecorating the place. Lucinda is able to keep her nerve and send the Duchess packing, even after inadvertently insulting her by removing the portrait that hung over the fireplace in Rockingham's parlor.

So far, so good - this is a light, breezy story with two fairly strong MCs and a secondary cast of ridiculously dramatic idiots swanning about. I've liked both Lucinda and Rockingham up to this point, because of their strength of character. Lucinda has entered this arrangement with her eyes open, has had the nerve to keep her temper when brought up against the vipers of the ton (including her new mother-in-law) and yet has not lost the innate goodness of her upbringing. Rockingham is a true rake, and his brash manner is refreshing in the sea of dandies (his cousin Zeus being the worst). I'm enjoying all the fun that Ms. Chesney is poking at the ridiculousness of the Upper Crust and their idiotic machinations to amuse themselves. Its a nice contrast to the seriousness of Mr. Westerville's illness, and Lucinda's practical outlook on life.

This is the halfway point of the novel, and suddenly things take a big nosedive. Maria Deauville pursues Rockingham to Paris but he escapes her grasp and she returns home, livid. When she learns that Zeus has paid Benson for information about Lucinda, she lures Benson away and murders her. Like, legit kills her and pushes her into a pond. Suddenly its not all fun and games anymore...

Rockingham returns to London with a crowd of fellow dissolutes and doxies in tow and pushes into the home that Lucinda has lovingly decorated. It doesn't take him long to realize what he's done, but when Lucinda rebuffs his drunken attempts to seduce her, he gets angry - and when he's angry, he's mean.

He manages to pull Lucinda down to his level, and they spend the second half of the novel acting at turns petty, insecure, and jealous. Suddenly we're on the rollercoaster to hell, by way of supreme stupidity. Lucinda is extremely jealous of Maria, so she decides to attract the attention of another notorious rake, Mr. Dancer, in a bid to make Rockingham jealous. Rockingham's just mad that Lucinda won't have sex with him, and is violent with her several times (though he does stop short of actual rape, whatever relief that offers). Maria and Zeus decide to bring Dancer into cahoots, paying him to seduce Lucinda so that Rockingham will divorce her. Kennedy starts sticking her nose in places where its not welcome - looking for her bosom companion Benson - so Maria tries to do away with her. Rockingham goes away to his country estate, then returns when he learns of Dancer's suit towards his wife. Lucinda goes off in search of her missing maid, with Dancer in tow. Rockingham meets up with them at the inn where Benson disappeared, and they discover Benson's body. They go confront Maria about it, but she kills herself before she can be arrested for murder and attempted murder against the servants.

It's all just - too much. Everyone regresses into adolescence with their attitudes and actions, and we've moved from smart, funny pastiche into weird soap opera. By the end of the book, I was disgusted with the whole lot of them, and I certainly didn't buy the HEA that Ms. Chesney was peddling here.

In the end, the characters are thinly drawn (there are glimpses into Rockingham's horrible childhood, which are supposed to excuse his violent attitude when denied his pleasures; Lucinda's bravery and smarts are plowed under by her need to make her husband as miserable and jealous as she is), and the romance is nonexistent. Marriage of convenience is my favorite trope because I like watching the characters fall in love with each other after their marriage, but unfortunately, that did not happen here. I found these characters to be petty, insecure, immature, and tedious in the extreme, and I am hesitant to give this author another try.

⭐⭐