The Vintage Romance Reader

Their match was impossible...

Just shy of six feet tall, Clarissa Carter would tower above most suitors - if she had any. Yet marriage is the last thing on her mind, since Marcus Ridley - Viscount of Fairfax and the only man she'll ever love - is well beyond her station. Despite her height, Clarissa is well on her way to becoming a beauty, but she's perfectly ware that as a steward's daughter, she's hardly a suitable match for Marcus...

...but their love was inevitable

Marcus is far too handsome - and eligible - for his own good. Wherever he goes ladies pursue him, declaring their love and making proposals - causing him to hold a rather scathing view of women and marriage. When Clarissa rescues him from the designs of an aristocratic hopeful, Marcus is duly grateful. But having kissed Clarissa, he feels something else for her as well - love. The viscount cannot get her out of his mind...and now the once love-shy lord will do anything to make the steward's daughter his wife.

Original Publisher: Zebra
Original Year of Publication: 2003
Page Count: 221

The October 2026 #TBRChallenge is "The Hunt." Usually I go straight for my (ever-growing) collection of Zebra gothics, but nothing was calling out to me especially, so I move over a couple of places to the Zebra regencies. This one appealed to me because no only does it scream one my favorite tropes (childhood friends to lovers), but it seemed to invert the usual story, of all the men chasing the Diamond of the First Water.

Marcus Ridley is certainly a very eligible catch on the marriage mart. The book opens with the line The adulation of the opposite sex merely gave him the feeling of being the prey at a hunt that never ended. And this is not egotistical arrogance, either - young ladies regularly steal away into his carriage, try to ambush him alone and tear their garments, or even quite literally chase him. It's such a plague that everyone knows that he will not be compromised and thus forced into offering marriage. He has had quite a few Seasons already, dodging from matchmaking mamas, and its only when he beholds his young nephew that his biological clock starts ticking.

Lady Fairfax, his mother, is only too happy to arrange a couple of house parties at Fairfax Towers, with her eye on marrying off her eldest son. Unfortunately, her taste in potential brides is awful. This sends Marcus out of doors as much as possible when he's at home, which is how he runs into Clarissa Carter again. The steward's daughter tagged along after him and his younger brother when they were all tiny children, and she developed a passion for him, especially after he taught her how to climb trees. Her sanctuary is in the trees on the Fairfax estate - even as a 17-year-old girl.

Clarissa is quite pragmatic about her place in life. She is the daughter of a steward and a socially ambitious mother. She was allowed to play with the heir and the spare as a kid, but once the boys were shipped off to boarding school, she was sent to live with an uncle, to share in lessons on ladyship with her cousin's governess. Mrs Carter desperately wants Clarissa to make a good match, but she despairs with her daughter's height, her red hair, her freckles, and her outdoorsy lifestyle: all complete turn-offs to eligible bachelors.

Clarissa is quite hurt by her mother's assessment of her, but she also refuses to marry for anything less than love - and considering her hopeless crush on Marcus, heir apparent, it seems that she's setting herself up for spinsterhood. Indeed, she starts spending time with Lady Fairfax as a companion; when Lord Fairfax falls ill and dies, Clarissa feels an obligation to stay with Lady Fairfax and help her through her grief.

Its at one of the ill-fated house parties at the end of the book that all the action from the back blurb happens, and it happens so fast that it is not really satisfying. Clarissa forces her way into Marcus's study ahead of an especially ambitious girl with a violent brother who enjoys dueling, plops herself down in his lap, and kisses him for all she's worth. It does the job, putting off the girl and her desperately-in-debt family, but Marcus is actually pretty peeved. By inserting herself into his affairs in front of a notoriously gossipy family, she might actually force his hand, because he does care enough about her reputation to offer for her. She turns him down and runs away to wallow in her feels; Lady Fairfax gives her son a fair setdown about how to attract women (given he's spent his whole life repelling them), he chases after her, they declare their love and live happily ever after, etc.

This was fine. The characters were fine, the dialogue was charming in places, and of course I do understand unrequited love very well, LOL. Marcus is not a jerk, not even to the people who were trying to trap him. Where this faltered for me was the pace of the plot. We cover 3 years in barely 200 pages, with huge swathes of time just slipping by with barely a mention. I had a hard time believing Clarissa was only 17 at the beginning of the story, and having no idea how old Marcus actually is, I couldn't really tell how immature he was at any given minute. I'm not big on age-gap stories, even in trad Regencies. It also feels like a lot of plot was front-loaded into the book, not leaving much breathing room for the Big Actions and Declarations of Love. Marcus is also never really hot for Clarissa's form OR her mind; he felt pretty tepid overall, to me.

So - not great, but not terrible, either. I've certainly read worse. I have at least one other book by this author in my collection, and I'll give it a chance.


⭐⭐1/2