REVIEW: Miscalculations by Elizabeth Mansfield
A spendthrift viscount must contend with a financial advisor—a surprisingly beautiful and charming one—in this Regency romance.
Jane Douglas had a sharp wit, a brilliant mind, and an extraordinary knack for numbers. As financial advisor to Lady Martha Kettering, she was able to provide for herself, her sister, and her mother. Jane had resigned herself to a quiet life in the country, in service.
Viscount Luke Kettering was a Corinthian: self-confident, elegant, with a talent for all the manly arts, and a penchant for taking risks. He was admired by his peers, yet his constant requests for funds to settle his gambling debts caused his mother deep concern. He eagerly accepted her challenge to give him control of his inheritance if he could prove to be financially responsible. All he had to do was act prudently for one month. He did not factor in one detail—that Lady Martha’s financial advisor would be overseeing his accounting for the month—and that he was—a she!
Dear Ms. Mansfield,
I realized it’s been a while since I read one of your Regencies so I pulled this one out due to the smart heroine. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot that I like about this book. But unlike others I’ve read, I have some issues with this one.
Jane Douglas is not a squashed cabbage – she speaks up quite a bit during the book – but she is given that thankless heroine task of being the sensible one who gets things done. Dear Papa died and left his wife and two daughters – sensible Jane and flittery Adela – with little but debts. Now Jane works hard, sleeps in the cold attic room, and keeps the wolf from the door while mama lounges all day in bed and Adela dreams of fripperies. It’s Jane’s talent with finances that earned her a job as a Vicountess’s financial advisor. It’s also this talent that has now landed Jane in London with the task of keeping Lady Martha’s spendthrift son in order for a month.
Luke, Viscount Kettering is that perfect Corinthian who can box, drive, fence, and gamble without ever losing his sang-froid over the results. But after losing to a scoundrel whom both he and his bestie Taffy feel cheated, Luke dreads approaching mama to ask for money to pay the debt. Even at thirty-one, according to his father’s will, he still doesn’t control his estate. Then his mother offers a deal to sign over control but only if he listens to this bland woman for a month as she tries to get him to change his ways. Things will not go as either of them planned.
Unlike most books by Joan Smith or Barbara Metzger, it’s not meant to be humorous. It also has a put-upon heroine who in the face of new bonnets or mama’s megrims has to keep her family afloat. But Jane does speak up sometimes and calls people on shit. Note the “sometimes.” Jane is not, however, the dull stick-in-the-mud that Luke usually thinks she is. In fact as she begins to get his financial house in order, he overhears her doing something kind even while she straightens out a situation he ought to have caught on to.
Luke thinks he’s a hail-fellow-well-met man about town. Admired by many it takes him a long time to realize that it’s the admiration of gamesters and sometimes silly men who only see surface appeal as well as his own hold-over response from school of not saying no to any dare or challenge. It’s going to take a while though for him to reach this self realization. At times Luke drags his feet and keeps believing in the honor of someone who has already proved himself to be a cad. Fool me once, fool me three times and all that.
There are plenty of times when, despite her tamped down feelings about Luke, Jane is ready to conk him on the head or decamp back home when Fate keeps her in London just a bit longer. The reasons are all reasonable though. The Kettering household begins to warm to Jane and is ready to help her although traveling times in this book are WAY off. As one reviewer says, getting from London to Devon by car via a modern motorway in three hours is impossible but via coach and four through the pouring rain? Nope.
I do like that though Jane has melty inner feelings for Luke, she sticks to her guns. His impression of her is slow to change and needs a few hints and ankle kicks at times. There is a rather Cool Whip frothy secondary romance that, eh, okay. I like Taffy and think he might regret Adela but fine and yes I saw the pairing coming. Both couples find themselves alone, many times, and nothing much is thought of it but Jane is more a servant and Taffy moves quickly and out of the public eye to secure his mother’s chaperonage for Adela.
What really lowers my grade though is one final bet that Luke and the Villain make. The gist of the bet makes me think much less of Luke and though he gets angry when he learns what almost occurred, what could have easily occurred but for some quick thinking and action, he still doesn’t seem to get what danger he put someone in. Any woman will know what I’m talking about. Then when that someone gets mad at him for it, another someone talks the first someone out of being mad because love. I did cheer
Spoiler: Show
I have to admit that in real life, people ought to go into marriage not really expecting to change their partner and that change realistically occurs when someone wants to change themselves. Both things happen here but a few situations just left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth that lowers what could have been a better grade. B-/C+
~Jayne
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I enjoyed tremendously the historical romance novels written by Barbara Metzger after learning of her books here. At the time, I subscribed to Scribd and her entire list was available to me! But after reading 3 or 4 of Elizabeth Mansfield’s books I didn’t enjoy them enough to read more. I read Joan Smith mysteries before her romances. They are a pleasure.
@LML: Glad to hear you’ve enjoyed Barbara Metzger’s books. I’ve only read one Joan Smith mystery. Which were your favorites?
Most of Mansfield’s books have worked well for me so far but there’s always that first one that doesn’t.
Elizabeth Mansfield was one of my auto-buys back in the trad regency heyday. I kept her books when I purged most of them some years back. I don’t remember this one, but Google tells me it was published in 2000, so that may be why. It looks like most of them have been released by her estate, but I miss the Signet covers.