I like Cathy Maxwell’s books. I liked 2002’s The Wedding Wager, in spite of its all-too-obvious flaws. With all the appeal and fewer flaws, I like The Seduction of an English Lady even more.

Lady Rosalyn Wellborne lost her parents when she was a young girl; afterwards, she was shuttled around from one uncaring relative to the next. Now an adult, she lives in genteel poverty with an old retainer on a spare estate, Maiden Hill. Having been raised without love, she consoles herself with her aristocratic birth. She is a force to be reckoned with in the social circles of the tiny village of Clitheroe, and considers herself to be a happy woman. Then her world is turned upside down: her reprobate cousin sells Maiden Hill out from under her to pay his gambling debts. She is commanded to go live with an unlikable relation in Cornwall.

Colonel Colin Mandalan is embarrassed. He didn’t expect his new estate to be tenanted, and he doesn’t relish the idea of evicting its haughty but beautiful inhabitant. But Colin is determined to have his way. The son of a cobbler, Colin didn’t attained his high rank and reputation by allowing sentiment to get in his way. An ambitious man who wants to be granted a knighthood, Colin also (we never learn exactly how) has become reasonably wealthy. Ownership of land is the first step to respectability and political power, and he will take possession of Maiden Hall, Lady Rosalyn or no Lady Rosalyn.

The obvious solution to this situation is a wedding. The local lord sweetens the pot for Colin, promising to give him the a seat in the House of Commons if Colin marries Rosalyn (there is a vote for the seat, but everyone knows that Lord Loftus really picks the winner). Rosalyn resists this plan as long as she can, scorning to ally her bloodlines to those of a cobbler’s son. Eventually, though, she sees marriage to Colin as her best option – and she cannot deny the attraction that bubbles between them.

Up until this point, the book was pleasant but not particularly riveting. Things got much more interesting for me after Rosalyn agrees to marry Colin, though. They find themselves in extremely intimate circumstances without really knowing one another, or knowing how to communicate. Soon they’re at an impasse: Rosalyn loves Colin, but doesn’t tell him so because she thinks he only married her to get his seat in the House of Commons. And Colin loves Rosalyn, but doesn’t tell her because he thinks she scorns his common birth.

This is not a romance for those who want a fiery, independent heroine. Rosalyn is extremely gentle and sweet, almost to a fault. I sympathized with her shyness and her fear of being hurt by her much more dynamic husband. Colin, too, is agreeable, if flawed; I was touched by the gentleness with which he treats his timid wife. He also bravely faces his faults and mistakes, which confront him not long after he marries Rosalyn.

There are some problems, though, chief among them that until the protagonists marry there’s little to distinguish the book from many others. I’d have liked the first section to be shorter and the second section longer and more fleshed-out. Another problem involves an important secondary character – a fox – which acts more like an animated Disney character than any wild animal I’ve ever encountered. At one point I half expected it to leap onto its hind legs and sing a merry song. And toward the end of the book we see that Colin’s highly democratic – indeed, you might almost say seditious – political ideals win the support and approval of almost the entire village, which really strained my historical credulity.

Nevertheless, I really liked this book. There’s no suspense subplot or secondary romance to get in the way, just excellent characterizations. It’s just the story of a wounded woman who blooms thanks to the love of her husband; and a flawed man who is mended, thanks to the love of his wife. It’s not deep, but it certainly gave me pleasure.