Delphine and the Dangerous Arrangement
By: Alicia Cameron / Narrated By: Rafe Beckley
Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
Oh gosh; what a WONDerful way to spend 6 hours!!!
I’ve been gung-ho for the covid vaccine since, like, forEVER, and then I got m’ second dose… Oh. My. Good golly GOSH!!! I was fair sore to be sure, lolled about in bed with fever and chills, and whenst I was able to nibble more than crackers? Well, I fair sure got a case o’ the Moderna Second Dose Blues. What to do? What to do?
Why, scroll through my Library for an Alicia Cameron, of course! And whazzis? What I’d seen before and had worried about: Rafe Beckley, a MAN doing the narration?! -BUT- I’d just come from my first of his narrations, and I’d loved him, so whattabout all this flopping around in bed, huh? MUST get m’ Regency ya-yas out, huh? THAT would make me feel okay?
And, oh my dear Accomplice, how MORE than okay Delphine and the Dangerous Arrangement was/is!
Delphine is newly orphaned and well-nigh near a spinster at two and twenty years. She’s spent her entire life within the bounds of the one village, living without any love or emotion from her cold and autocratic mama, and here at the funeral, what are these? AUNTS?!?
Sure enough, The Aunts don’t know what to do with this cool and aloof girl who speaks her mind (Delphine has no artifice about her, wellll, save her dyed hair, but that’s not been her choice!). They take her in hand back to London to prepare her for The Season, trying to get her to be more like the other debutantes. And what’s is this? Delphine is proFOUNDly wealthy? And her hair is a silvery blonde under there? To go with her turquoise eyes? Sure the girl is to be a hit, if she juuuuust didn’t open her mouth to say what’s reeeeeally on her mind!
Meanwhile, in another and most fashionable part of London, the Wed or Dead League is meeting, this group of hiiiiiiighly expensive men who’ve hit rock bottom as in: They can no longer hope for that next big win to come their way and are instead left to YES, marry lest they lose their estates, and their fashionable lifestyles. This entrance of the enigmatic Delphine into Society has them all eager and agog with the unutterably handsome Viscount Titus Gascoigne SURE HE’S to be The One. Upon their first encounter, he works the room, occasionally casting the smooth look Delphine’s way to note his progress, and is fair shocked when she oh so coolly commands him to meet the next morning.
And thus the two enter into an arrangement of sorts whereby Gascoigne “pretends” to toss his cap in the ring and woo her, all the while standing her as a wise counselor to tell her which of her beaux is up to what. Delphine, who’s NEVER been in company is levelheaded, but she’s as a babe to the wolves whenst it comes to the ways of Society, the ways of men. She is SURE that Gascoigne is far too lecherous and womanizing a fortune hunter to ever be a threat to her heart, but immediately she feels at home with him. After all, there’s not a single one of The Aunts she can trust as they just wish to see her wed.
At first I wasn’t sure I was going to warm to Delphine, she’s just SUCH a cold fish, but even from the beginning her barbed observations were amusing, and the manner in which she first parried with Titus had me applauding. But as the story progressed, and as Gascoigne comes to show her how she’s been behaving, with how coldly she treats her inferiors, in particular Miss Phoebe her poor relation who's been hired as Companion for her, well good gosh, Cameron wrote a scene in there that had me weeping as the dams burst.
There are plots aplenty, and pretty funny repartee between the two and between The Aunts and each other, The Aunts and Delphine, so I was kept amused. And unlike Cameron’s books that come in series form, here there are only the lives of Delphine and the Viscount going through the little dance of romance and misunderstandings, so there’s only a single Happily Ever After that we’re looking forward to. But the characters are so capably sketched out that there are a wide variety of characters to care about. Even when The Most Dastardly Plot is unspooled, we never hate one of the villains, instead feel for him by the close of his character arc.
And oh how deLIGHTed I was by Rafe Beckley! He KNOWS every single character and what-all is going through each’s head, whether it’s a bemused Gascoigne smiling as he tells Delphine that no, really, young ladies should NOT be talking about a gentleman’s kept opera dancers, or it’s an exasperated Aunt who feels that no, really, Gascoigne is just far too charming to be anything less than dangerous. There’s the weasel-faced little man in the moleskin waistcoat who’s always smiling but asks way too many questions, and there’s little Miss Phoebe who holds Delphine when Delphine’s worst fears for herself just miiiiiight be hitting too close to the mark. Beckley quite simply inhabits these characters that I grew so fond of, and he appears to be tickled to death with hitting the funny words/responses with just the right oomph for our amusement. From that previous work, I knew I wouldn't be disappointed, but in no way was I prepared for just how much he’d have me laughing… or crying…
Nope, not part of a series, but SUCH a grand way to spend an afternoon/evening in bed whilst down for the count. The Second Dose Blues didn’t have me hungry for much, so I TRIED sipping soup. Alas, Cameron’s words, and Beckley relaying them had me spewing soup through my nose as I snorted a laugh, or had me unable to sip as there was a disTINct lump in my throat and tears rolling down my cheeks.
Oh huzzah huzzah huzzah!!!
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