Redeeming the Redeemed Rake Trope: Erin Satie's THE YOUNG BLOOD

The trope of the redeemed rake is a staple of historical romance. But the rake of romance is very rarely a rake in the sense that people of the past meant the word: "a fashionable or stylish man of dissolute or promiscuous habits." Or at least, the emphasis tends to be far more on the "promiscuous" side of things, than on the "dissolute." A rakish romance hero is one who is sexually experienced (a good quality in the eyes of romance readers), rather one who is characterized by the negative qualities of licentiousness, profligacy, or debauchery. Admiration for a "young blood," another name for the rake, rarely takes into consideration the blood (metaphorical and actual) such a man is likely to leave in his wake.

The original 18th century rake:
Hogarth's The Rake's Progress (painting 3)

Which is why I'm always excited when I come across the one or two historical romances published each year that feature rakes who are rakish in both senses of the word: lauded for their sexual exploits and disdained for the lack of morals which has engendered them. And Alfred Lamb, Earl of Kingston, the male lead in the fourth book in Erin Satie's Victorian romance series, No Better Angels, is most definitely a romance rake of the more uncommon type.

Readers of Satie's earlier books have met Kingston in the guise of antagonist, and so will be well aware that the hero of The Young Blood is not heroic in any real sense of the word. But for those for whom this is a first Satie read, the author makes it clear from the book's opening lines that here is a man who is about as uninterested in living the life exemplary as it is possible to be: "He hadn't bothered with the fancy dress. For a long time—most of his life, really—Alfred Lamb, Earl of Kingston, had done the absolute minimum necessary to get by. More and more often, even that was beyond him" (Kindle Loc 36).

"Getting by" for Alfie consists largely of charming different women into bed—or onto a couch, or down to the floor—drowning the griefs of his youth in physical pleasure. He has a way with the ladies, a bad habit, as even he himself has come to see it. A way of slipping past their defenses, of seeing what it is they truly desire, then giving it to them—or at least, some semblance of it: "Show her an idealized version of herself, give her a magic mirror that reflected just the right amount of truth, and she would treat the painter as an oracle. She would want more; she would reveal herself, make herself vulnerable, to have it" (299). Alfie knows his behavior is selfish, but at least he is no longer suffocating on his own despair.

Alfie, too, lets women see just enough of himself to entice them—but without making himself the least bit vulnerable:

"Lord Kingston," she murmured, all wonder and sympathy. "I believe you've been hurt."
     "Is it so obvious?" Alfie felt his lips twist. He knew the answer to this question: yes. An alarming number of women scented it on him.
     What's more, it only whetted their appetites. They seemed to enjoy the fantasy of a rake driven by heartbreak. As though he were one shard short of being whole again and thought the missing piece must be hiding under a lady's skirt.
     He gathered that many women hoped his loyalties would transfer to a new target midcoitus. And then, broken heart healed, the fullness of love would drive him with the same intensity as the lack of it had. He'd be a perfect mate.
     These women were impressed by the dogged persistence of his decade-long pursuit. It ought to worry them. Any method that failed so consistently ought to be abandoned, or at least revised.
     But really, they ought to have asked themselves a completely different question: where had the object of his affections disappeared to? What did she know that they didn't? Because if she had gone, never to return, it wasn't because he was so damned loving.
     He had never been anyone's knight in shining armor.... The misunderstanding was staggering, really. (558)

To show any of the women he lies with anything beyond the mere air of vulnerability would be to defeat the purpose of the game: to drown the sorrows of his many painful losses in sensual pleasure.

Alfie thinks because he warns women about his true colors, tells them that they shouldn't sleep with him, that it is their fault, not his, if they do not heed his warnings:

     "I should never have—"
     "Which I told he last night," he interrupted. "Several times."
     She gaped at him, the blood slowly draining out of her face. It never helped to warn them. (839)

It takes a curious bystander, one as brusque as Alfie is charming, to hold up a magic mirror to him, one that begins to show him not an idealized version of himself, but rather the havoc his own behavior is causing in the lives of others:

     "Because it was your fault."
     "It was?"
     "I saw you talking to her at the Finlay-Coateses', before I left."
     "And?"
     "If there is any truth to these rumors, then you've caused her great harm. Altered her life for the worse—perhaps ruined it entirely."
     "Helen Fairbanks is free to make her own choices. Good or ill."
     "That doesn't follow at all, Lord Kingston," said Sabine. "She might have chosen to spend one evening with you; that doesn't make her free." (1196)

Sabine Banchory, the daughter of a duke, has been unhappily married for years. But intelligent, dignified Sabine holds tight to self-respect, something that Alfie has never been able to grasp, and does not deign to show her unhappiness in public. It is in nature to reserve all the hardest tasks to herself; she believes that "work, persistent and unstinting effort applied over time, was the secret to a life well-lived and the only route to greatness" (756). And if it is work to put up with her gambling, philandering husband, well, that is what she will do. And she will not hesitate to chastise a man whose selfishness causes harm to others. Even when that man has set his sights on seducing her.

Sabine's magic mirror may start Alfie thinking, but it a lot more to shock him out of his self-absorption. A horrific act of violence. A debt incurred, a repayment necessitated. And the slow, drawn-out tension of a seduction unsatisfied, taut with desire.

I've been a fan of Satie's gorgeous writing style from the start of her career. But with this final book in her inaugural series, she proves that she is as capable of crafting a compelling storyline replete with sexual tension as she is of penning gorgeous prose. The Young Blood could well be the best historical romance you'll read all year.

Illustration credits:
Hogarth: Wikipedia
Magic mirror: Bon Appetit Hon

Erin Satie

The Young Blood

Little Phrase, 2016

Thinking Outside the Oppresor's Box: Courtney Milan's THE HEIRESS EFFECT

As a young adolescent, I spent most of my afternoons either reading (largely romance fiction) or watching soap operas. Plots of both genres often rely on the either/or dilemma for their emotional charge: Pretend to be my lover, oh sweet young girl, says the evil villain, or I'll tell your true love that you once worked as a hooker (to support your dying mother, of course, but I won't let that relevant detail slip). Break up with your girlfriend, the conniving villainess orders our rough-around-the-edges-but-truehearted hero, or I'll play on your younger brother's penchant for gambling to ruin your family's finances. One category romance from this period (late 70's/early 80s) that still sticks in my mind featured an overbearing brother informing the heroine she would have to pretend to be his fiancée, or he'd reveal to his sister that the heroine had been dating said sister's fiancé while the poor girl had been recuperating from illness in the hospital (no matter that she'd had no idea the smarmy fiancé was engaged, and was trying to break up with him anyway)*. Soap opera protagonists, just like many heroes and heroines of romance, are put in a powerless position, faced with the untenable either/or formulated to keep true lovers apart (and keep viewers, and readers, on the edge of their seats, waiting to see how they'll ever get back together).

Courtney Milan presents the male lead of her most recent Victorian historical with just such an appalling either/or. Oliver Marshall, the bastard son of a duke, has fought most of his life to make a place for himself in the world of the privileged. As a schoolboy, he often fought back against those with more power, those who teased him for his working-class roots and his lack of knowledge about acceptable behavior among England's elite. But years of fighting can wear even the best man down; as an adult, Oliver has learned to be more politic, biting his tongue and currying favor, biding his time until he earns his own share of power and can make the men who abused their power, and forced him to grovel, grovel in their own turn.

From Punch, August 1867. Passage of the Reform Bill, extending
the franchise = "A Leap in the Dark."

Oliver's most fervent wish—to extend the vote to the working class, in particular to his beloved father (not the duke, but the man who raised him)—seems on the cusp of achievement, if only he can persuade former schoolfellow and political powerhouse the Marquess of Bradenton to switch his vote, and the votes of the men who typically side with him in Parliament. But Bradenton is wary about ceding his vote, not only because he believes that every man has his rightful place in society, but because he isn't sure Oliver shares this view. In order to convince himself that his potential ally is "going to be part of the proper order.... That he'll know his place, and expect everyone to be in theirs," (34) Bradenton demands something in return: Oliver's willingness to publicly humiliate a woman who keeps stepping outside her designated social place.

Heiress Jane Fairfield has cut a wide swath through Cambridge society, but hardly one that any other young lady would envy. Clothes dripping with ostentation designed to signal her abundant wealth, tongue wagging with entirely unintentional insults ("She asked Whitting about his studies, and when he made a wry comment about preferring to concentrate his efforts on the study of liquids, she stared at him. 'How surprising,' Her eyes were very round. 'I had not thought you to have the capacity of intellect to read physics!'" [17]), Jane has come to be known as the "Feather Heiress," for "being around her is like being beaten to death with a feather" (11). Her unintentional snubs have more than rubbed Lord Bradenton the wrong way; they've so offended him that he wants her gone, banished from Cambridge society, no longer the sharp pebble in his oh-so-proper shoe. Too lofty to undertake his own dirty work, Bradenton tasks Oliver with the job, holding out the carrot of his Parliamentary vote as recompense.

Not half as garish as Jane Fairfield's "fuchsine" dress

What makes Milan's novel so very interesting is that even while Oliver protests, insisting not only to Bradenton and his colleagues, but also to himself, that he'd never accept the Marquess's offer, inside he's not entirely certain:

     "And as for you, Marshall..." Bradenton looked at Oliver. "Take the time you need to salve your conscience. To tell yourself whatever it is you need to make this palatable. You'll be doing her a favor, you know."

     No, Oliver thought. Not a favor. And I'm not doing it.

     But that sick pit in his stomach felt differently.

     Yes, it whispered. Yes, you are.  (35)

Oliver's dilemma grows even worse when he comes to realize that Jane Fairfield is not the simpleton she pretends to be. Her feather-wielding is a deliberate disguise, one devised in order to scare away suitors for vital reasons of her own. But even as he works to befriend the friendless heiress, Oliver is honest enough to realize that he'd be doing the same, whether he intends ultimately to betray her or not. He's committed smaller betrayals in the past; can he rely on his common decency to keep his ambition from pushing him to make one last betrayal, no matter how inexcusable?

This is the point in the soap opera, or the traditional romance novel, when the protagonist would be forced to make the choice: refuse to give in to the evil villain, and watch those you love come to hate you; sacrifice yourself and your principles, and watch your own dreams fall apart at your feet.

But neither Jane Fairfield, nor Courtney Milan, believe in the inevitability of the either/or. In fact, this novel suggests, when we accede to the either/or terms that oppressors set, we help contribute to our own oppression. Jane urges Oliver, and through him, readers, to look beyond the choices those in power would force upon him, to imagine a third way, a path that simultaneously allows him to keep his self-respect and achieve his goals. And each of the story's sub-plots, most focusing on patriarchal men thinking they have not only the responsibility, but the right, to make decisions on behalf of younger women, echo this theme. Rarely is all power held in one villain's hands; look beyond the lies that keep your fellow oppressed at odds, find allies, and work together to devise a different solution to the problem, and you'll go a long way toward knocking down not only class privilege, but gender and racial privilege as well.

* If anyone knows the title of this one (a Harlequin Presents? Or a Silhouette?), I'd love to find it again!

Illustration credits:

"A Leap in the Dark": Punch cartoon, from the syllabus web site of "Mid-Victorian Britain in History and Art," Prof. Meg Cronin and Hugh Dubrulle

Fuchsine dress: Fashion Era.com

Courtney Milan, The Heiress Effect.

Self-published. 2013