Grade: C+

Henrietta Barrett “Call Me Henry, Please. Everyone Does” Barrett loves nothing more than Stannage Park, a remote Cornwall estate that she has managed ever since she was a teenager. She doesn’t mind the hard work that goes into maintaining a large estate, has forsaken dresses in favor of breeches so she can move about easier, and if she has never been romantically involved with anyone in her life, that’s just fine with her because there is nothing more that she loves than Stannage Park, NOTHING!

William Dunford, whom we first encountered in Splendid, is known as a kind, but nevertheless languid, happy-go-lucky rake who is not interested in marrying. He is rich, good-looking, and though he feels pangs of jealousy when he sees how happy his married friends are with their respective spouses (This Alex was not the Alex I had previously read about. Why do sequels turn people into such brainless vapid freaks whose only goal in life is to make the same lobotomous matches for their single friends? Why don’t they ever just leave single people alone?), Dunford is happy being single. When he unexpectedly inherits a barony and an estate in Cornwall from a recently deceased eighth cousin (or something ridiculous like that), he decides he’s tired of London and sets for his new digs to check them out.

You know what happens next, don’t you? If you don’t, you’re seriously brain-dead or related to this woman.

When “Henry” first sees Dunford, it is from her bedroom window and he is emerging from his fancy ass carriage. Almost instantly, she declares him to be the most byoootiful man she had ever seen in her entire life, and oh, look how broad his shoulders are, and oh, he’s so… manly. And I think I am experiencing a strange tingling in my nether female parts, the same feeling I get when I watch the cows mate… Yada-yada-yada. When Dunford first sees Henrietta (I can’t call her Henry. I can’t.), however, he’s not immediately impressed. This is because she is dressed in a raggedy ass shirt and some footman’s breeches (probably) and stinks to high-heaven because she had just finished helping to build a pig pen. Or something. We readers know that there’s going to be some bow-chicka-bow-wow later on because even though Henrietta looks like a homeless person who has just been victimized by those awful Bum Fights people, Dunford notices that she’s got pretty, pretty hair, the prettiest hair he’s ever seen in his entire life. Ever. It’s like brown, but in a certain light, it’s got like golden highlights and shit. Like a romance heroine would ever have raggedy ass hair. Pfft.

Though Henrietta becomes so in luuurve with Dunford’s good looks that she would like nothing more than to lock herself in her room so she could write Mrs. William Dunford over and over in her notebook, she develops an asinine notion that now that Dunford is the new lord of Stannage Park, his next step would be to kick her out, along with her “quirky” band of servants. Because she thinks this, she feels it is up to her to save Stannage Park and convince Dunford that he is better off in London. Unbeknownst to her, Dunford thinks she’s done a good job with Stannage Park and has no plans whatsoever to kick her out at all. However, because NO ONE EVER SITS DOWN TO TALK in these books, Henrietta believes Dunford means to kick her out, so “wacky antics”, involving Henry convincing Green Acres is not the place for him, ensue.

Anyway, a friendship of sorts develop between these two, and though they are obviously attracted to each other, there are no instances at this point of the book where Dunford shoves Henrietta to the grass, sticks his tongue in her mouth, and grinds his groinage against her. There are some kisses and stuff and some “la, sir, I can’t believe you would touch me in such a manner”, but that’s it. Dunford is actually very nice and gentlemanly in these “getting-to-know-you” scenes. He even gets mad at Henrietta when she calls herself a “mannish” freak and says she would never find a man who’ll find her pretty. Commence eye-rolling. Shut up, Henry. When Dunford finds out that he is now Henrietta’s guardian and therfore it is his doody to bring her to London and find her a husband, the story proceeds to stick itself in the toilet and unceremoniously flush itself.

Now comes the part of the book where we have the Pygmalion scenes. Because, like, Henrietta doesn’t know how to be a girl and stuff and who’s going to teach her? Yay, it’s Belle and her adorable mom to the rescue! They do such a good job on Henrietta, teaching her how to dress properly and act like an Almack’s zombie, that when she is presented to all of London at her first ball, she is declared the Season’s Incomparable. But of course she is. All of a sudden, Dunford is acting like Alex from the first book (like I said before, this book’s Alex is not that book’s Alex. It’s like he got a lobotomy or something. He was a prick before, but at least he had a personality) . He’s growling menacingly from corners, acting like a total ass to Henrietta, scaring off her would-be suitors, and shit like that. I mean, I know this is supposed to show us that he is in love with her and is just acting jealous, but he’s not even cute about it. He’s just annoying. Meanwhile, Henrietta, insecure dingbat that she is, thinks that Dunford doesn’t want her anymore and proceeds to whine like an asshole at every opportunity about what a freak she is and that she should just go back to Cornwall. All of a sudden, my buddy Ned shows up in a glorified cameo appearance (and to set up his novella). Before he could do anything that would help me to decide whether to like him or hate him some more, fuckin’ Dunford shows up and kicks him out, doing his Neanderthal act that he borrowed from his buddy Alex (the old Alex).

Anyway, he and Henrietta finally SIT DOWN AND TALK, and find out that they want to be with each other, after some bump and grindage in a carriage. It doesn’t stop there, of course. A soon as Dunford gets Henrietta well and truly alone in a guest bedroom in Alex’s country estate (Alex and Emma throw an impromptu party at their country estate just so Dunford can get Henrietta alone to propose to her), Dunford and Henrietta HAVE SEX (but this is after Dunford proposed, so it’s okay?). Afterwards, there are some quiet scenes where Dunford and Henrietta are shown to be lovey-dovey, as Belle and her mom help set up the wedding, and I like Dunford and Henrietta again. It’s so nice when they’re not sniping at each other and actually talking to each other…

BUT THEN COMES THE GREAT BIG MISUNDERSTANDING! As it turns out, Dunford never broke up with his mistress (I guess every wealthy, fashionable guy in London has one), so a skanky villain-type whose skanky advances were once brushed off by Dunford, overhears a conversation that Dunford is having with Billington about breaking up with his mistress, so Billington now has permission to fuck her (how nice), and tells Henrietta all about it. Henrietta, of course, NEVER BRINGS IT UP TO DUNFORD, and instead just cries about it and follows him to his mistress’ house where he stays just a little bit too long (they were talking about politics and shit), and resolves that Dunford lied about being in love with her because she’s a mannish freak and an ugly, smelly cow to boot. Oy. I have a headache. Anyway, she hatches some scheme to get Dunford to renege on their bethrotal, but it backfires and he marries her anyway. Dun-dun-dun…

Bottom Line: I really liked the first 100 pages of this book. Dunford wasn’t an arrogant dick, didn’t talk down to Henrietta, and seemed to really enjoy her company. Henrietta, on the other hand, didn’t annoy me too much. Once they got to London, though, Dunford mutated into something else and Henrietta became a simpering, blubbering cry-baby. In the beginning of the book, I really sympathized with her because she’s never had a home of her own and Dunford’s appearance threatened the only home she’s ever really known. I liked that she gradually thawed out for him and they began to get to know each other as friends. That part was cool. What happened to their friendship once they got to London? THEY STOPPED COMMUNICATING AND STARTED ASSUMING THE WORST OF EACH OTHER.

And another thing, for all of Henrietta’s blustering and righteous indignation in the beginning of the book at potentially losing her home, she gave it up right quick to live the fancy life in London, didn’t she? Emma did the same thing for Alex. She gave up her life-long dream of running her daddy’s company once she went goo-goo eyed over Alex and barely spared it a second thought once she got to London. Tsk-tsk-tsk.

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