{Historical Romance Review} A Lady Would Know Better by Emma Theriault

A Lady Would Know Better by Emma Theriault
Published by Entangled: Amara on January 28th, 2025
Genres: Fiction, Romance, Historical
Pages: 298
Source: Netgalley
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Get ready to swoon for this dreamy, forget-me-not romance that’s filled with the delightful tartness of Jane Austen and the sweeping, unputdownable drama of Bridgerton.

There are many things an English lord might encounter on the grounds of his wintry estate. Trees. Birds. Perhaps a wandering gamekeeper. Instead, the Earl of Belhaven finds a woman in the snow, unconscious and nearly frozen to death. Then her luminous gray eyes open just long enough for her to plead, “Don’t let them get me.”

Now Jasper Maycott has his hands full with a woman who has absolutely no memory of who she is or where she came from—to say nothing of her name! Just a gold ring, some fine clothes, and a penchant for pert conversation. But while “Jane” dresses and speaks quite like a lady, Jasper can’t make any assumptions. After all, she could be a crafty fortune hunter...albeit a charming and unutterably beautiful one.

Only there’s no room for romantic love in the Earl of Belhaven’s world. There is just grim duty, a lingering sense of loss, and the knowledge that love—in any form—can only bring heartbreak in its wake.

But while a lady should know better, the heart heeds no rules...even if its every beat portends the danger she was running from.

I received A Lady Would Know Better for free. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Jasper Maycott, Earl of Belhaven, is a broken man. A bout of scarlet fever took both his parents, elder brother, and fiancé in one foul swoop. As the spare, Jasper jumps into a role he never imagined he would take on. His three sisters and two brothers grieve with him, but Jasper puts his grief aside and gets on with life. All the Maycott’s lives are tossed into chaos again when they find a bloodied woman in the snow on a frigid winter night.

Once the young woman regains consciousness, they all realize she can’t remember her life before the moment she woke. The Maycott’s agree to call the woman Jane and agree to help her recover in any way they can. Under the roof of Mulgrave Hall, Jane goes through several tests to see how much she knows in what a lady would be educated in. Some things she is useless at, yet other more unique talents are discovered. Things about her slowly come back as she and Jasper become much closer than they should. They discover their love of literature is something they have in common besides their instinctual physical attraction. While Jasper fights it with every bit of his being, he can’t help himself. Love finds him and takes a hold of him, body and soul.

This is only the second book published by Emma Theriault and it has made me a fan for life. I love her third person writing style which you don’t see much in romance novels these days. Yet, this type of writing style still gets you deep into each character’s mind and heart. The authenticity of Jane’s struggle to remember her past while contemplating what a future with Jasper could be was incredibly imaginative. I really felt the progression of Jane’s memories coming back in small stages was a brilliant strategy. Jasper’s journey in this story was an epic arc. Jasper, as well as Jane, learned holding too tight to the past could bring more heartache in the future.

While I don’t know at this time if this is a series, there are plenty of Maycotts who also need to find love. The character I would like to see most would be Jasper’s widowed sister, Helena. I know I won’t be the only one who will want to enjoy more stories in this world Theriault has created.

Exclusive Excerpt from A Lady Should Know Better

Seeming to understand that her venom was not producing the desired result, leaned forward, her arms resting on the desk and her expression softening. She was close enough for him to smell her perfume—a bewitching mixture of orange blossom and vanilla.

“Do you recall our previous meeting in the Banfield library?” she asked, her voice softer than before.

Simon clenched his jaw and looked down, knowing her entrance into the room that evening had so imprinted upon him that he could recall little else. She had been calm but determined in the face of her brother’s panic, and Simon had discerned at once that while Belhaven was the rock who held steady what remained of his family, Helena was the warmth that sustained them.

She was beautiful, of course, but any man could see that. More interesting to Simon was that she had not shied away from his curious gaze and had met it instead with a subtle inquisitiveness of her own. While her brother had spoken, Simon had watched as Helena had leaned against the library shelf, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, her hand settling at the small of her back. Unconscious movements, but Simon had recognized them: she’d been in pain.

He’d looked up and seen that her expression was defiant, as though she expected him to dishonor her with his pity. Instead, he’d mirrored her earlier movements, shifting his own weight and leaning on the walking stick anyone else in the room would have called a prop for his vanity. When their eyes had met again and she’d offered him a knowing quirk of her brow, he’d been struck by the fact that despite having only just met and not having exchanged a single word, this woman had truly seen him, all of him, both the man he allowed others to believe him to be and the one he kept hidden from everyone. And when they’d parted, he’d almost been overcome with the desire to do whatever it took to learn everything he could about her.

But his presence in the Banfield ballroom had not led to a flurry of subsequent invitations, leading Simon to suspect he had been observed just as much as he was observing, and he must have failed in some crucial way.

He supposed he should not have been surprised. He was not amiable enough for the matter of his birth to be of little consequence, like the alluring Clarence Meadows, bastard son of the Duke of Rosemont, nor did he respect the antiquated rules of Society enough to adhere to them fully. But he suspected the worst mark against him was that he knew who the men of the Ton were when their titles and the strictures of polite Society were stripped away. How could he expect to drink with a man who had begged him on his knees to accept a night with his mistress in lieu of a repaid debt? How could he break bread with a man who staked his wife’s inheritance on a game of whist and lost? And how could he ever forget the vile things those supposed gentlemen said when they found themselves crowded around a card table with nary a woman in sight?

Whatever hopes Simon had had of becoming better acquainted with the sister of an earl had quickly faded once he’d realized they lived in different worlds and he would never be truly welcome in hers.

“What of it?” he asked mildly, doing his best to conceal how much she had affected him that night and in all the days since, even if he himself had been unaware of it until this moment.

“You were one of the first people to treat us as more than the sum of our shared grief. I’m not sure my brother had enough awareness to thank you for it, or if you would have appreciated such sentiment from him, but it remains true nevertheless.”

Even Simon, unconcerned as he was with much that occurred outside of his club, had been aware of the Maycott family’s tremendous loss—word of an earl, his wife, and his heir dying in one fell swoop could hardly escape anyone’s notice. A part of him had wanted to write to Jasper, to lend assistance in any way the man might find useful. Though his elder brother had kept to the more auspicious Whites, Jasper had been known to frequent the Arondelle before assuming the title he had never expected to have. Simon thought there were similarities between the two of them, but even still, what comfort could the disreputable son of an even more disreputable duke offer an earl?

The duchess bent her head, catching his eye once more. “I recall you speaking that night of what men might do when backed into a corner. Do you remember?”

He nodded. “I have seen what desperation does to a man.”

“That is why I am here, Radcliffe. I worry what the Duke of Pembroke might do if he believes he has no other option. He is little more than a boy, after all.”

At last, Simon understood that it was not a sense of detached obligation that brought Helena to the Arondelle, but rather the love she had for her brother-in-law. Simon had grown up in a very different world than the duchess, one that made men of boys long before they were ready, but even still, he found himself wishing someone had cared for him like that, in those dark years he’d spent alone after his mother had died, before the Vandy family had taken him in.

“Is that what brought you back to Mayfair?” The question slipped out before Simon could stop it. The duchess did not need to know that he was aware she had kept to their family seat in Surrey since losing her husband.

But if she noticed his blunder, she did not reveal it. “That, and I hope to begin efforts to fund Annabelle House.”

“Annabelle House?” he echoed, genuinely curious.

“Lady Belhaven and I mean to open a refuge for vulnerable women, but we need to secure funding before we can begin welcoming them,” she said in a rush, as though she knew Simon wouldn’t care to hear more.

“A noble cause,” he began, an idea rapidly forming in his mind, one that might help to persuade the progressive-minded duchess that he was not the heartless man she believed him to be.

“An expensive one, as we are discovering,” she interjected before seeming to recall whom she was speaking with. “But unless you have a suggestion as to how we might convince your wealthy patrons that our cause is more deserving of their riches than your card tables, Duke, might I humbly request that we return to the matter at hand?”

“Simon,” he amended. If he was going to win her over, they had to start somewhere.

She studied him for a moment, seeking something dishonest in him, perhaps. He prayed his bluffing skills were up to the task. “Are you going to allow me to pay the debt, Radcliffe?” she asked, firmly rejecting his attempt at familiarity.

Simon knew his newly concocted plan to win her over by espousing the progressive virtues of his club would require much patience on his part. That and deception, given that he had never envisioned the Arondelle as a bastion for progress in Society, even if his own beliefs were quite liberal. He meant for his club to be an escape from politics, and so he knew coming down too firmly on one side or the other would be bad for business. But the duchess didn’t have to know that.

“No,” he replied lightly, bracing for her immediate outrage, knowing he could weather it for the time being.

Her small hands curled into even smaller fists on the mahogany, and her cheeks reddened once more. “And why not?” she seethed, looking about ready to strangle him.

He leaned forward, their bodies now both angled over his desk. He thought she might retreat from him, but the duchess held firm, refusing to shy away from his intent gaze. Simon was close enough now to see there was a curious ring of yellow around her pupil, bright as a sunflower against the cornflower blue of the rest of her iris. He wanted to learn more of her secrets, to come to know her in the way he suspected a rare few people did.

But only in order to win the wager. And if he wanted to emerge victorious but also minimize the duchess’s hurt, he had to be clever about things.

“Because,” he began, tearing himself away from her bewitching eyes and adopting the aloof air he had cultivated all these years. “I believe we have stumbled upon a mutually beneficial arrangement, Duchess.”