Do Bad Girls Deserve a HEA?

Thanks, Lucienne, for having me visit today!

I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.

That’s what Jane Austen said about Emma, the heroine of her novel by the same name and it’s something I was very conscious of all the time I wrote A Most Lamentable Comedy. I knew I was taking a risk with Lady Caroline Elmhurst (and with the hero, too, Nicholas Congrevance) but I had to do it.

I wrote Comedy partly to demonstrate that my first Regency chicklit The Rules of Gentility wasn’t a one-off book, but as much as I enjoyed Philomena (the heroine of Rules), I had this rule of not writing about virgins prancing around in drawing rooms (oops), and I really didn’t think I could break it again. Editors might expect me to always write about naïve babbling fashionistas and then what would I do?

And for my own entertainment, I needed a change. So I picked a minor character from Rules who was quite obviously rude, unprincipled, and dishonest—oh, how I loved writing Caroline. Mrs. Giggles defined her as a gloriously flirtatious hussy with a PhD in gold digging which pleased me no end. She proved to be even more outrageous as the book progressed. Occasionally I would utter a mild protest and then I just let her rip.

Here’s an excerpt, Caroline closing in on her next mark. She and the hero have just met and are on their way to take part in amateur theatricals at a house party in the country:

How very fortunate that he has been abroad, and how relieved I am to find that my reputation has not crossed the Channel. If he had been in London, it would be an entirely different story. Indeed, it is a miraculous stroke of luck that he is a blank slate upon which I can rewrite myself, provided he does not listen to vulgar gossip from his fellow guests.

“You enjoy the theater, Lady Elmhurst?”

“Oh, I adore it.” I clasp my hands to my bosom (he watches) and sigh deeply (he blinks). “It is tremendously diverting. It is one of the great pleasures of town.” I do not mention that cards and flirting and activities well beyond flirting behind closed doors are what I really prefer. “And of course I enjoy music; I play a little upon the pianoforte--my friends say I am not totally devoid of taste--and I have a very small skill with watercolors.”

“Otterwell has some very pleasing prospects on his estate. I expect you will wish to sketch them. Perhaps I might be permitted to accompany you, Lady Elmhurst.”

“That would be delightful, Mr. Congrevance.”

The question, of course, is whether I should take him as protector or husband. As enamored as he seems to be of the countryside, there is a good chance he will want to settle on some tedious estate and commune with his cows. He might expect a wife to slop around there with straw in her hair and breed!

But I was worried. What if readers agreed with Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest that The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means. Do Caroline and Nicholas, a pair of well-matched rogues, deserve a HEA? And isn’t it a rule of fiction that characters should undergo transformation?

The last thing I wanted my hero and heroine to do was reform. I was having too good a time. Nor did I want them to reveal hearts of gold. Instead, I brought out what they had always possessed—self-awareness, humor, loyalty—and let them find what they really needed. At the beginning of the book they both want money. At the end, they have both found a sense of community and purpose as well as true love.

You can buy A Most Lamentable Comedy at bookdepository.com which offers free shipping worldwide, or if you comment or ask me a question Lucienne will enter your name into a drawing for a signed copy.

 A MOST LAMENTABLE COMEDY

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