![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Cotillion - Georgette Heyer
One of Heyer's better romances. I'll probably read it more than once.
Kittie has been reared by her grumpy benefactor who was an admirer of her mother. He decides that he will leave his fortune to her as long as she marries one of his great nephews (whom she regards as her cousins - having met them often as she was growing up).
The great nephews are not much impressed by this. Either they are in love with someone else, already married and thus can't claim the cash, feel it's very very unfair on Kitty to be put in this situation, or feel insulted that their great uncle is trying to force their hand.
Kitty has always had a crush on Jack, but he does not turn up when Uncle Matthew demands - he hates being manipulated, even though he would be willing to marry Kitty (partly for the cash).
Freddie, who hasn't been told about the 'marriage' thing until he arrives is not interested in marrying Kitty - he is wealthy in his own right and isn't looking for a wife.
Kitty, who is desperate to go to London and try to find a husband who wants to marry her without any fortune (realistically a fairly forlorn hope...), twists Freddie's arm into proposing to her so that she can go to London with him. (and also to try and make Jack jealous) The rest you can probably guess...
I like Freddie. He's not an obvious hero. He doesn't sparkle in conversation, he's not the brightest member of his family, nor does he get into duels or flagrant gestures. But he likes Kitty. He likes her developing sense of fashion, her willingness to listen to his advice about what to wear (and Freddie is on the spot when it comes to clothing). He has a strong sense of propriety which leads him to disapprove of some of the contacts Kitty makes, but he's never nasty.
And when Kitty gets into scrapes, it will always be Freddie who quietly sorts things out without even being asked.
It isn't very long at all before the reader senses that Jack's ways with the women, his manners (nowhere near as good as Freddie's), his flashes of temper, his tendency to try and manipulate people. etc. are causing Kitty to lose her infatuation for him - though Jack is so confident of his hold over her that he totally fails to realise this.
Freddie knows her feelings for Jack, but doesn't realise they have gone until she rejects Jack's confident proposal and chooses Freddie instead.
no subject
And I like Kitty, who does her best to sort out her own life, despite her disadvantages, and still has time to care about other people.
no subject
the only mental quirk I had was a voice in my head from 'Pygmalion' going 'Marry Freddie!' (Which my brain rapidly changed into an instruction rather than a voice of horror.)
no subject
no subject
Which is why my favorite Heyer is A Civil Contract, probably.
no subject
Freddie's relationship with his father is unusual, as well, because Legerwood is a sardonic intellectual in the Duke of Avon's line, and one can only assume that his amiably inarticulate son and heir is probably something of a disappointment to him. Over the course of the book his father comes to regard him with a good deal more appreciation (and, Avon-fashion, divines the true state of affairs between him and Kitty at an early stage).
I'm afraid that on my first reading I completely failed to realise that Kitty was supposed to be hinted to be in love with her cousin Jack, since he was so obviously a completely unappealing character and features so infrequently in the course of the book, and in consequence I was very confused by the ending :-p
But this is one of the books that scores highly for its vividly-drawn minor characters, featuring not one but *three* entertaining romantic sub-entanglements -- if you count the Fish -- to compensate for the absence of conventional romantic flights between the central couple. I think Lord Dolphinton's improbable love-story was probably my favourite (and far more memorable than Cousin Jack's dubious charms), but Kitty's questionable cousin Camille is endearing as well. And Freddie manages to win over not only the heroine but the reader by demonstrating that, while he may be known as 'the fool of the family', he is gifted with considerable wisdom and competence and a genuinely sweet nature -- he has 'emotional intelligence' as opposed to school-learning.
(Heyer's other most improbable hero is probably the gentle, sheltered and physically unimpressive Gilly in "The Foundling", who tries to escape from the overpowering affection and protectiveness of his household and discovers (a) that he is a great deal more resourceful than anyone believes and (b) that there were things to be appreciated about his old life after all...)
no subject
And I'm now realising that (a) there are a bunch of Heyers I haven't read, and
(b) my copy of "Black Sheep" is missing (I probably loaned it to someone, but I can't remember who).
So I think there will be some book-buying in my future.
no subject
no subject