Greer Fairchild and her two cousins are the Desperate Debutantes of London’s current trilogy. The girls are desperate because Greer’s aunt, who raised them all, has died and her second husband, who is no blood relation to any of the girls, is ready to marry them off to the first men who ask. Greer hies off to Wales in pursuit of a possible inheritance from her late, estranged father. Through a circuitous route, the £4,000 in question had wound up in the already well-stocked coffers of Rhodrick Glendower, the Earl of Radnor, known in Wales as the Prince of Powys.

Along the way, Greer meets Mr. Percy, who states that he himself is on his way to see the prince and joins her in her travels, filling her ears with sordid tales about Radnor being a thief and a murderer. When they arrive, Percy has long, heated conversations with Radnor in Welsh, which Greer cannot understand. Percy, who has had to be bailed out of many sordid scrapes, is a cousin to Radnor. Radnor holds Percy’s inheritance, which he will receive when he marries, and now Percy demands it, as well as Greer’s inheritance, claiming to be her fiancé. Radnor is sure Greer is in cahoots with Percy to swindle him, but states that he is happy to give Greer her £4,000 if she can prove her identity. Letters are sent off to London, but it will take time for the proof to arrive, and until then, Percy and Greer are to be Radnor’s unwilling “guests.”

I liked Radnor well enough. He was never handsome, and a fall from a horse left him with a limp and a scar which exacerbated his already broodish tendencies. He was happily married but lost his wife and daughter in childbirth and he believes himself haunted by a ghost who looks remarkably like Greer.

Greer, on the other hand, was a ninny. Percy has VILLAIN written all over him, in big, bold letters. And even when he is persuaded by Radnor to abandon Greer for a mere £100 pounds, she cannot seem to make the leap from “if A, then B”: If Percy was lying, then perhaps Radnor, and every servant and neighbor who sings Radnor’s praises, is telling the truth. Instead she continues to leap to wild conclusions; when she hears that he was married before, she automatically assumes that Radnor killed his wife. Greer bickers and huffs and puffs and throws out “how dare you!”s like there’s no tomorrow. Very tiresome.

And another thing – it is stated and accepted by all that it will take a full month for Greer’s letter to get to London and then another month to receive word back. This seemed completely ludicrous to me, and sure enough, five minutes spent searching online yielded the information that by 1680 the General Post Office made weekly runs between London and Wales.

There were some nice gothic overtones to The Perils of Pursuing a Prince, the scenes of the Welsh countryside were vivid and enjoyable, and Radnor was an appealing hero. But this could not overcome an unsympathetic, willfully obtuse heroine, inconsistent plotlines, and historical inaccuracies.