Apollo £20 pp352
It is 1796 and Duval Harlington has returned home to England after six years
away — he had got caught up in the tumult of the French Revolution and had
been held in a notorious French jail. If he is to inherit his family estate he must,
according to his dead father’s wishes, be married in two days — or he will forfeit
everything in favour of an obnoxious distant relative.
Unsuccessful so far in his quest, he happens across a wife sale. As women were considered chattel, there was an old custom of selling off unwanted wives. Duval’s interest is piqued by Edmée, a beautiful and bruised young Frenchwoman, a recent widow. He marries her just in time — but his greedy cousin is circling and lawyers have been instructed.
Fashionable London society and its scandal sheets are agog — who is this new Lady Harlington, a woman whose past is thick with secrets? Is she a whore or a charlatan or both? A delicious romp of a novel.
