Book Log 44/2009 - The Unknown Ajax
Jun. 30th, 2009 01:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaceyGeorgette Heyer – The Unknown Ajax
The second book in the Heyer the WH Smith buy-one-get-second-at-half-price offer.
Lord Darracott’s son and heir has recently been drowned leaving the belligerent, bullying old man with no choice but to accept the son of his second son as his new heir. Unfortunately the second son married far beneath him and was cut off by his father some thirty years ago, so Darracott has never met his grandson – supposedly a weaver’s brat from Yorkshire and neither has the rest of the family who have been kept in ignorance of his existence. When the old man can’t find a legal way of denying the weaver’s brat his title (Baron) and estate, the brat is sent for and the family – a bunch of squabbling cousins and their mothers – informed. Darracott intends to take the peasant and ‘lick him into shape’ before he inherits and informs cousin Anthea that she’ll be expected to marry him to make him halfway respectable – to which she takes great exception, of course.
The weaver’s brat who arrives, however, is a surprise to them all because Major Hugo Darracott is not what they expected. Big and bluff, but self-assured and easygoing, Hugo has a sense of humour – and he’s going to need it. He refuses to be browbeaten by his bullying grandfather, refuses to rise to the bait when his cousin Vincent throws insults his way and refuses to accept high fashion advice from his cousin Claud. They are beginning to despair of him, but Hugo shows his mettle when the family runs into trouble because of younger cousin Richmond’s escapades with smugglers. Anthea gradually comes to realise that Hugo is neither stupid not uneducated and friendship develops into something more, while it’s Hugo who rescues both the family’s reputation and fortune despite the best efforts of the old man to put him down at every opportunity.
Hugo is a lovely character and quite my favourite Heyer hero so far.
The second book in the Heyer the WH Smith buy-one-get-second-at-half-price offer.
Lord Darracott’s son and heir has recently been drowned leaving the belligerent, bullying old man with no choice but to accept the son of his second son as his new heir. Unfortunately the second son married far beneath him and was cut off by his father some thirty years ago, so Darracott has never met his grandson – supposedly a weaver’s brat from Yorkshire and neither has the rest of the family who have been kept in ignorance of his existence. When the old man can’t find a legal way of denying the weaver’s brat his title (Baron) and estate, the brat is sent for and the family – a bunch of squabbling cousins and their mothers – informed. Darracott intends to take the peasant and ‘lick him into shape’ before he inherits and informs cousin Anthea that she’ll be expected to marry him to make him halfway respectable – to which she takes great exception, of course.
The weaver’s brat who arrives, however, is a surprise to them all because Major Hugo Darracott is not what they expected. Big and bluff, but self-assured and easygoing, Hugo has a sense of humour – and he’s going to need it. He refuses to be browbeaten by his bullying grandfather, refuses to rise to the bait when his cousin Vincent throws insults his way and refuses to accept high fashion advice from his cousin Claud. They are beginning to despair of him, but Hugo shows his mettle when the family runs into trouble because of younger cousin Richmond’s escapades with smugglers. Anthea gradually comes to realise that Hugo is neither stupid not uneducated and friendship develops into something more, while it’s Hugo who rescues both the family’s reputation and fortune despite the best efforts of the old man to put him down at every opportunity.
Hugo is a lovely character and quite my favourite Heyer hero so far.
