The Reluctant Widow

 

By Georgette Heyer

A Regency Mystery

Wellborn Elinor Rochdale had her life turned upside down when her father lost his fortune through gambling and then killed himself. Left on her own, she works as a governess in order to survive. Starting a new job, she has been instructed that a carriage will be waiting for her at the inn in the village of Billingshurst. So when she alights from the London stage and a man from a coach asks her if she is the young lady who has come from London in answer to the advertisement, she assumes he is there for her and she gladly climbs into the very nice coach. But she has climbed into the wrong coach and the people at the destination wanted someone for a very different position than governess to small children. What they wanted was a wife.

Naturally, Elinor's first impulse is to request to be taken back to the village. But then the man who is the proposed groom meets with a fatal injury and is expected to die within a few hours. And Elinor allows herself to be persuaded into an impromptu marriage and is now a widow and the sole owner of everything her dead husband possessed, including a run-down mansion.

It doesn't take long for Elinor to realize that something odd is going on with the house as she surprises a strange man who walks in as if he owns the place. And there is the intruder who shoots and wounds a guest of Elinor's when the guest surprises him in the night. Plus it all might be connected to the war between Britain and France. 

 

I first read this book decades ago. And I have read it several times over in the years since. I always liked the book and I enjoy rereading it every time. This story is kind of between a Georgette Heyer romance and a Georgette Heyer mystery. It's not really a murder mystery because the only one who dies is the groom and his death is not a mystery. But the mystery is what the groom was up to before he died and if he was a traitor. 

The romance story is not romantic. It's really a very minor subplot, with the mystery being the main plot. There is virtually no love-making beyond the hero binding a bandage around Elinor's head when she get bashed by an unknown person. But I have never minded that the romance is mostly missing. It really is a fun and light read, despite the gloomy mansion, the midnight intruders and people getting shot and bashed in the head.

Here is a review by Jane Greensmith on Austenprose.