I read most – if not all – of the historical romances Virginia Heath wrote for Harlequin Historical, and gave several of them DIK grades. The stories were engaging, warm and funny, the characters were well-developed and the romances were sexy and full of chemistry. I lost track of her when she switched publishers, so thought it was time to catch up with her and picked up Look Before You Leap, book two in her Miss Prentice’s Protegées series.

Although this is the second book, it works as a standalone; I read it without having read the first as there’s no overlap with plot or characters. Miss Prentice’s School trains young ladies to be governesses and ladies’ companions, pretty much the only occupations open to those not poor enough to have to work with their hands, but not wealthy enough not to have to work at all. Lottie Travers was brought up with her four brothers on the family farm in Kent, but little distinction was made between them in terms of upbringing, and consequently Lottie is a bruising rider, an expert on horses, knowledgable about farming, unafraid to express her opinions and used to a degree of independence. When she’s selected to attend Miss Prentice’s School for Young Ladies at sixteen, she tries hard to behave with the decorum expected of her and to suppress the impulses and instincts that make her, well, her, so she can find a better class of employment that will allow her to send money home. But try as she might, her desire for freedom, especially on horseback often gets her into trouble.

It’s still getting her into trouble seven years later when, newly dismissed from her position as a governess for ‘borrowing’ one of her master’s horses, she’s indulging in a mad gallop in Hyde Park at dawn when she almost collides with a rider mounted on a splendid Arabian horse, which throws him and then bolts. Cursing the rider for his carelessness, Lottie hares off across the park to fetch the rather splendid horse, and on returning it, gives the gentleman a blistering set-down for not looking where he was going, then turns and gallops off.

Later that day, Lottie is offered a position as companion to the Dowager Lady Frinton – a cantankerous battle-axe and grande dame of the ton who is notoriously difficult to please but who, to Lottie’s surprise and relief, seems to find her high-spirits and forthright manner entertaining.

Guy Harrowby, Viscount Wennington, much prefers rusticating at his estate in Kent than spending time in London, eschewing the social whirl of the ton in favour of getting his hands dirty working on his land. A youthful love affair gone badly wrong when his the object of his affections publicly humiliated him has soured him on romance and turned him into something of a recluse, but the quiet life suits him – despite his mother’s insistence that all work and no play has made Guy a very dull boy. He loves her dearly, but her constant harping on at him to find himself a wife and get started on the grandchildren he’d promised her is getting on his nerves. His thirtieth birthday is approaching and she wants to throw him a big party (clearly hoping to also throw some elibigle debutantes in his way) – which he vetos immediately, agreeing instead that she can arrange a dinner party for no more than thirty guests.

Excited at having persuaded her curmudgeonly son to allow her to arrange anything, Guy’s mother immediately writes to her older half-sister, Lady Frinton, to tell her the news – which finds that lady, and her new companion, heading to Kent to partake of the festivities. Once arrived however, Lottie discovers that there’s more afoot than a simple birthday dinner. The two dowagers have hatched a plan to host a week-long surprise house party to celebrate Guy’s birthday, even though they know he won’t like it.

He isn’t best pleased to discover that his aunt’s new companion is none other than the Valkyrie who’d knocked him off his horse and threatened to horsewhip him that morning in Hyde Park. Even more infuriating is the fact that he’s been unable to forget how stunning she’d been, her cornflower blue eyes sparking, her golden curls bouncing as she’d harangued him.

Guy and Lottie strike sparks off each other from the moment they meet, with the spirited, vivacious Lottie tying the more reticent Guy up in knots as they bond over their love of horses and their attraction becomes harder and harder to deny. Lottie is an engaging herone – bright, practical and good-natured with a great sense of fun, but she doesn’t really grow or develop throughout the course of the story. Guy is less well-characterised – being grumpy seems to be his defining character trait – and I had little patience with a grown man still licking his wounds nine years after the public rejection that sent him fleeing from London with his tail between his legs. Their bickering is entertaining for the most part, but the animosity becomes a bit wearing after a while and I wanted them to move on and actually start getting to know each other better. Despite the obvious physical attraction between them (and their mutual love of things equine), I can’t actually say that I know what made them fall in love with each other.

Look Before You Leap is entertaining enough, but there’s nothing in it to make it stand out from the crowd and nothing the long-time reader of historical romance won’t have read elsewhere several times over. The one thing it has going for it is the author’s sprightly prose and trademark humour – although even those sometimes get lost amid some pretty flabby pacing (especially in the first half) and repetition of thoughts and ideas. (Yes, Lottie is good with horses and an unconventional ray of sunshine. Yes, Guy is a crotchety stormcloud and the grouchiest viscount ever to have viscounted etc. etc.) And I really didn’t like Guy’s mother and aunt going behind his back to organise the house party when he’d expressly said he didn’t want to make a fuss over his birthday. The author does attempt to put a more sympathetic spin on it – one that basically guilts him into participating – but I couldn’t help thinking what they did was selfish and inconsiderate, and that Guy had every right to be angry about it. The third act conflict is incredibly flimsy and the resolution is just plain silly; maybe the fact that Guy is prepared to embarrass himself in public is a sign of personal growth, and/or that what he feels for Lottie is Twu Wuv, but he makes a total tit of himself for her and she just winds him up by pretending she doesn’t know how he feels and forces him into making a public declaration. That was unkind and really soured the ending for me.

Look Before You Leap is light-hearted, frothy and insubstantial, and might work better for you than it did for me if low-angst, light-on-plot historicals (without smash-the-patriarchy heroines) are your jam.