The Earl and Countess Godwin eloped years ago and only managed to live together for a short time. Love of music and composing brought them together, but wasn’t enough to keep them happy. Through a series of misunderstandings, faulty communication and their general immaturity, Helene and Rees became disenchanted after a matter of months and went their separate ways. Helene returned to family and friends while Rees remained in his family home in London.

Helene has not been inside their London house in ten years, but goes there to confront Rees and ask for a divorce. She is desperate to have a child. She feels she can face the disgrace of divorce, and since Rees is openly living with his mistress, an opera singer, his reputation is not an issue. Helene hopes she can convince him to grant her request.

Music is what drives Rees, and he lives mainly to indulge his passion for composing operas. In fact, his reason for keeping his mistress installed in his wife’s bedchamber is simply to have her voice at the ready, to try out arias at a moment’s notice. Rees doesn’t respond as Helene hoped. He’s perfectly happy with his situation, at least on the surface of it. He not only refuses to divorce Helene, he suggests that because she’s thin and lacks sensuality, she’s not exactly mother material. See what I mean about unappealing?

With the help of her faithful friends Esme and Gina, Helene starts a campaign to attract a man to father her child. This means a makeover - hair and wardrobe - resulting in the accentuation of Helene’s delicate beauty (think Audrey Hepburn). Helene goes from scrawny hen to lovely swan, and catches the eye of more than one eligible candidate for father of the year. She also makes suggestions about Rees’ music, reminding him that she is a very talented composer herself. Suddenly she has Rees’ attention. He decides that Helene should move in with him so that he can father her child, and in return she can help him with his opera. The catch is: he wants his singer to stay as well. Single minded in her purpose, Helene agrees, in a sort of “brain-off, hormones-on” moment. She secretly moves in with them.

So much for unappealing, and on to what works in this story.

Things start to look up when the story turns to Lina, the young opera singer. Finally realizing that her beautiful voice, not love, attracted Rees, she is trapped by a lack of suitable alternatives. Rees’s brother, Tom, a country vicar, arrives on the scene to reconcile his differences with Rees. His resolve to mend the relationship is strained by the situation. A man of integrity and smoldering passion, Tom falls in love with Lina. She resists him on principle, but Lina can’t deny her attraction to Tom — he’s a kinder, gentler Rees. The interaction between these two characters was great, and maybe Rees and Helene suffered in comparison. I couldn’t help but think that the author was sort of stuck with Helene and Rees, since they were launched into this plot in a previous book.

The book is very well written. The flow is good, and the dialogue pulled me into the story. I was struck by an obvious chronological mistake that made me wonder if the author did it just to see if anyone would notice. At one point, Rees mentions that he and Helene met in “ ‘07”. They fell in love over “several months” courtship and eloped. Then James writes that in 1816, it’s been ‘ten years’ since Helene was inside their London house. Either I was boggled by the math or something just doesn’t add (or subtract) up.

Daily meetings to collaborate on musical scores and baby-making give Helene and Rees opportunities to talk, demonstrating how they’ve learned from their experiences and regrets. They turned out to be rather perfect for each other, selfish motives and all. They also seemed perfect for the time period. I’m no musical expert, but the composing exchanges seemed believable, too.

Your Wicked Ways demonstrates Eloisa James’ knack for storytelling, and I’m anxious to see what she’ll come up with next. Maybe she’ll write more fresh new characters that are unencumbered by pre-existing plots. Here’s hoping!

--Deann Carpenter