Review: What Were They Thinking?!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 22, 2014
Brian, the Earl of Aftlake is an impoverished nobleman living in a rooming house in London on a stipend of less than 100 pounds a year, and supplementing his income by his skill at cards. His family owns a number of estates, but, due to his deceased father’s profligacy, they are encumbered with great debts and produce no money for himself and his widowed mother. He relies on wealthier friends for many a meal. Just to have something to do, he occupies the back bench his nobility entitles him to in the House of Lords, but a career in politics is unlikely without funds.Katherine has just come back from India, in the company of her Aunt Jenny who has raised her from the time her mother died when she was three years old. She is possessed of a grand fortune left to her by her father, a British colonial in India who has recently died. Her father was got on the wrong side of the sheets and he and Katherine have long felt the hurtful snubs of upper class society, both in England and in India. Katherine is determined to remedy this situation by marrying into the nobility. She also believes that her father’s father is a member of the nobility and is determined to find out who he was.Katherine makes a careful study of the eligible lords in London who might be interested in marrying for wealth. She has no interest in making such an arrangement permanent so she will offer the lucky man an agreement by which she will have two children by him, including at least one boy, and they will divorce when the second one is a year old. The marriage will never-the-less benefit the potential husband substantially.Katherine’s list, in the end, boils down to one man, Brian, the Earl of Aftlake. She invites him to a gathering  at Miller’s Hotel and presents to him her proposal. He finds her very attractive but, of course, is taken aback by her boldness and the nature of her proposal. He tells her he will give it some thought. Brian is interested in offering for the hand of Sally Saverlock, whom he has known all his life, but after a disastrous trip to her estate, during which she spurns his advances, he decides to take Katherine up on her proposal.At this point the reader is screaming “What are they thinking?!”Katherine makes a superb Countess and the arrangement works out far better than either party dared hope. But what will happen when it comes time for the terms of the agreement to be met?This reader has long been remiss in learning about this period of history, partly because she has never been able to get beyond page one in any book by Jane Austin. However, D.W. Wilkin’s writing is entertaining and accessible and I look forward to reading more of his books on this period.