Susan Johnson’s latest historical is the sequel to Outlaw, a book I haven’t read. On page one of To Please a Lady, I was plunged into plots, intrigues, feuds, and the relationship between two lovers, Robbie Carre and Roxane Forrester, all of which were initiated in that earlier book. This could have been a bewildering experience. Instead, it was exhilarating.

Robbie has a price on his head, but he returns to Scotland anyway, risking his life because he cannot bear to be away from his beloved Roxane. He sneaks into her bedroom during a party, and although Roxane begs him to leave for his own safety, she can’t resist letting him stay for a passionate tryst. Meanwhile, the serpentine Duke of Queensberry has seized all of Robbie’s vast holdings and intends to secure his claim by capturing and executing Robbie as soon as possible. And the Duke of Argyll has come to Scotland to enforce the English queen’s rule. Argyll is a lecherous man (all the chambermaids know him as “Big Red John”) and he intends to get Roxane into his bed. By morning, Queensberry’s men are chopping down Roxane’s door with an axe while Robbie escapes out the window – and that’s just the beginning.

Roxane’s is Edinburgh’s reigning beauty, but that’s where her resemblance to most romantic heroines ends. She is the twice-widowed mother of five children and a woman of passion, both in and out of bed. As a rich widow, she commands her own fortune and her own destiny.

Robbie Carre is impulsive, jealous, hot blooded – in this respect, he’s exactly as you would expect an eighteen year old to be. Let me say that again, ladies – he’s eighteen years old. I don’t think Roxane’s age is ever specified, but she must be around thirty, as Robbie was five when she gave birth to her eldest child. This age difference did give me pause, but Johnson skillfully convinces me that Robbie will literally die if he cannot have Roxane’s love. And he’s no callow innocent, I assure you: he’s rich as sin, a feared duelist with a violent temper, and has been honing his skills in bedrooms all over Europe for years. He wants Roxane, he wants her now, he wants her forever, and he’s not really interested in her objections.

Robbie’s impulsive possessiveness (eighteen!) is the chief internal conflict that keeps the lovers apart. Roxane has been a wife twice, and she prizes the unique independence that wealthy widowhood gives her. She doesn’t want to be protected, nor to have her decisions made for her, and she most assuredly doesn’t want to become a pawn in the plots that seethe around the outlawed Carres. When one of Robbie’s enemies abducts Roxane’s children, she becomes even more determined to retain her freedom.

Johnson is famous for her explicit love scenes and her footnotes. In this novel, the sex does sizzle, but it doesn’t overwhelm the plot. The footnotes are rather interesting, but most of them are maddeningly irrelevant.* The best thing about To Please A Lady is the snappy, sexy dialogue. Here’s a sample, in which Roxane is telling her girlfriend about her unreasonable attraction to Robbie:

“There’s no possible explanation. Don’t ask me for one. If I were religious, I’d say it’s God’s will.”
“But since you aren’t, might it have something to do with his virile young body and flagrant carnality?”

Did people talk like this in eighteenth century Scotland? No. Do I care? Hardly. I love these people. This novel is bawdy, funny, and exciting. You will become wrapped up in their lives. When they are in pain, you can feel it. When they resolve their problems, you want to cheer. Beside the unconnected footnotes, I have only one problem with this book. It is liberally sprinkled with the “f-word,” which honestly doesn’t bother me, and the “c-word,” which does. Still, these characters are not shy and they do not pull their punches, so I suppose that they would be intemperate in their speech as well. To Please A Lady is so good that I was willing to overlook it. It gives me tremendous pleasure to wholeheartedly recommend this novel.