Venetia Part I

Venetia is one of Heyer's later novels and not one of my favourites but it is likable enough for me to re read it at times. It is set in Yorkshire, a couple of years after Waterloo and is a very romantic tale. However the hero is not that likable to me. Venetia Lanyon is the daughter of a baronet, and the family are one of the richest in their area but her father who had died a while earlier was something of a recluse. Venetia has 2 brothers, Conway who is in the Army, and stationed in France and Aubrey who has a damaged hip and is very delicate. Venetia is now 25 and has never been away from her home, she has kept house for her father and looked after Aubrey who is a very clever boy of 17, a classical scholar who dislikes company. Venetia keeps busy with her house and keeping an eye on the estate for Conway, but she does at times regret being cloistered at home. Sir Francis, her father, refused to let her go to London or have any visitors except her older friend Lady Denny and his own godson, Edward Yardley, a local squire. Since his death, she is a bit more free, but she has felt obliged to take care of Aubrey and manage the estate till Conway leaves the army. Venetia is a dazzling beauty, and she has found that when she occasionally went to Assemblies in York, she had admirers but Sir Francis' reclusive tendencies meant that none of them could pursue her. Her mother died when she was a child and that seemed to be what set off her father's oddities, but Venetia can remember her mother being very beautiful but that both her parents seemed unhappy. She is out walking alone one day, and goes walking on the neighbouring estate of Lord Damerel. Damerel inherited his estate many years earlier but rarely visited, and is a scandalous rake, who eloped with a married lady some years earlier and is said to have driven his father to an early grave. He did not marry the lady, and has hardly ever visited his home, except with some very unrespectable companions and some ladies of easy virtue. He is beleived to live abroad much of the time. To Venetia's amazement, he suddenly appears in her path and kisses her, thinking her to be a village girl. She tells herself she should be very shocked at such brazen behavour, but in fact she is intrigued by it.