A Debt to Delia scores a point for nice guy, “beta” heroes. Major Lord Tyverne (a Viscount who will be an earl someday, and who is known as Ty) isn’t a push-over, but he’s the kind of guy who does incredibly wonderful things for others. He’s convinced he is acting out of duty and honor, but he actually goes way beyond what most men’s sense of honor would require. On the strength of Ty alone, I’d recommend this book.

Ty is injured, behind enemy lines, and figures he’s a dead man. Suddenly, out of the bushes comes a young, healthy officer who gives Ty his horse. The handsome, reckless George tells Ty he’ll find his way back, but he ends up dying. Ty feels guilty for surviving when his rescuer perished, and when he reads George’s correspondence he feels even guiltier. Apparently George has a pregnant sister that he left behind in Kent, a woman with a tarnished reputation and no one left to turn to. Ty resolves to get himself to England so he can marry the girl and pay his debt to George.

When Ty arrives on Delia’s doorstep, his injuries have worsened and he is nearly out of his mind with fever. She figures his marriage proposal is just the raving of a lunatic. She takes him into her home and puts him in the care of the local healing woman, hoping he’ll get better soon and leave. When her bother George died, his estate passed to his annoying cousin Clarence, who is trying to get Delia to marry a disgusting old lord named Dallsworth. Currently, Clarence and his wife are allowing Delia and a few other relatives to live in the estate, but they’ve let her know that she will have to find her own place when the baby is born.

When Ty’s fever breaks and he’s back in the land of the living, he proposes to Delia again, and explains why honor dictates that he must marry her. Delia refuses, steadfastly insisting that she’ll marry only for love. And as it turns out, she’s not even the pregnant one. That would be Belinda, George’s childhood sweetheart who conceived the child right before he left to fight, and whose father disowned her. Belinda is nearing her time, and is unfortunately very ill and likely to die. It takes a while for George to finally learn about Belinda, and when he does, Delia tells him that honor dictates that he marry George’s pregnant fiancé. By this time, Delia is beginning to truly like Ty, so part of her hopes that he’ll say no. Ty is starting to like Delia, so he wants to say no. But Ty is an honorable guy, so he agrees to give Belinda – and George’s child – the protection of his name.

One can guess pretty much what happens from here. Indeed, if one is hoping for a wildly different Regency read, this is probably not the place to look. On the other hand, the rather predictable nature of the book is somewhat in its favor, as it supplies an even, dependable read. The one deviation from this is the ending, which involves a suspense-type plot that comes out of left field and seems both silly and unnecessary.

I had some problems with Delia. Although she is generally likable and sympathetic, at times she really seems to have her head in the clouds. She refuses Ty’s offer of marriage point blank the first few times, and while I could admire her spirit, I wondered how realistic it would really have been for the time. Often when I have a question about the Regency mindset, I ask myself “What would the Bennet girls (of Pride and Prejudice)do?” Elizabeth does say that “only the deepest love will induce her to marry,” but then Elizabeth has two healthy parents and a nice home – not to mention and attractive older sister with good marriage prospects. Delia, on the other hand, is living in a home from which she is about to be evicted, and supporting elderly relatives and servants. Delia’s options appear to be limited: she can marry the odious, old Lord Dallsworth who hates bathing, or she can go live as a companion to one of her greedy, irritating relatives. Or, she can marry the handsome, rich, honorable viscount who has proposed to her. It doesn’t seem like a very difficult choice to me.

But I found myself quite willing to overlook Delia’s short-comings because I really liked Ty. It wasn’t just that he was kind and honorable, although he was both those things; he was also very funny. Metzger has been noted for her humor in past books, and although this one was not quite as raucous as some of her past efforts, I did find it amusing. Most of the humor comes in Ty’s inner monologue; we hear a lot of his thoughts and observations, and he has a quiet, wry sense of humor that is quite charming. His other personality traits, like his patience and honor, could have made him seem too good to be true at times, but his humorous observations humanized him. While the rest of the book runs from pleasant to average, Ty is simply outstanding.

In the end, Ty made the book for me. I would recommend it to others who enjoy heroes who are honorable and funny, but not anyone’s idea of an alpha-male chest beating type. Even if the book as a whole is not terribly different, Ty makes it worth a glance or two at least.