The Return of the Earl read like a traditional Regency stretched and padded into the length of a Regency-set historical. I was confused, then bored for a long stretch before finally things came together. But shortly after the book began to move, it was over.

In the first chapter of The Return of the Earl, a man and three young boys bid goodbye to England, as they are being sent to Australia for theft. Fifteen years pass and one of the boys returns, claiming to be Christian Sauvage, the heir to the Earl of Egremont. The Egremont title is a rich one, and several heirs have had accidents over the past year. The current heir is Hammond Sauvage, and he is not about the accept the word of a stranger.

Julianne Lowell is a friend of Hammond’s fiancee, Sophie. Her late brother, Jonathan, was a good friend of Christian and Julie knew him too, but she was very young when he was sentenced to be transported. Sophie asks Julie to come and see this man who calls himself Christian, and when she does she remembers – a little – but she isn’t positive. Julie concludes that this man who calls himself Christian Sauvage is handsome, kind and charming, and he does know a lot about her brother. He seems to be who he says he is. But Hammond is not the only member of the Sauvage family, and when Sir Maurice Sauvage, a baronet and distant cousin, comes on the scene, Christian finds himself facing a formidable foe.

The Return of the Earl is very slow to get started and only begins to take off after Sir Maurice comes into the story. Prior to his appearance, the characters skulk around and exchange such elliptical dialogue I was wondering who they were myself. After Sir Maurice comes onto the scene, we find out a lot about the Sauvages and the story had the potential to be very interesting, but I still felt distanced from this book.

Part of the problem is that the characters always seemed to be holding themselves back, both from each other and from the reader. Christian disappeared for a longish time toward the end of the book, and some characters never even appeared until the last chapter. There is one love scene in the book, and it is a perfunctory one. Christian and Julie never caught fire, and their relationship was as lukewarm as could be. The secondary characters are wooden too, the only one in the book with a spark of life was its villain.

If The Return of the Earl had been trimmed and re-written as a trad, it might have been a very good one. There are some excellent trad elements here, but they are buried under the padding. I have loved some of Edith Layton’s traditional Regencies, and some of her full length historical novels as well, especially To Wed A Stranger. When Layton is at her best, she can write intense stories, with warm and vivid characters, but this book is not at all up to her past standards.