The Lily of Ludgate Hill

The Lily of Ludgate Hill (2024) Mimi Matthews (Belles of London #3)

Set in London in 1862

Much of the first part of this story takes place concurrently with The Belle of Belgrave Square.

Lady Anne Deveril has spent the past 6 1/2 years joining her mother in mourning for Lord Arundell, as her parents had a true love match, and Lady Arundell was devastated beyond measure at his death.

She’d long ago learned that the busier her mother kept herself with her spiritualist endeavors, her social engagements, and the charity school she sponsored in Wimbledon, the less time she had to sink into black despair.

So Anne has continued to wear morning, and joined her mother’s delving into Spiritualism, and to all intents and purposes stopped living after her father’s death.

Mr. Felix Hartford loved Anne, but the two have been at odds for the past six years, so when Anne shows up at the Earl of March’s door, knowing it would be Hartford who met with her, he agrees to do as she requests, and ends up escorting Anne and Lady Arundell on a trip that is little more than a ruse for Anne to check on her friend Julia.

Especially as it allows him to escape the burdens that fell upon him after his father’s death.

He’d been up since before dawn broke, attending to yet another remnant of his late father’s distasteful legacy. An unknown legacy as far as society was aware.

Hartford’s late father, uncle, aunt, and cousin are terrible.

“Is Storridge somehow morally compromised by his father’s behavior? By his brother’s?”

“Obviously,” Brookdale said. “As in nature, so, too, in the human family. Isn’t that right, Father?”

And I had a great deal of difficulty with Lady Arundell.

Mama’s proclivities for plain dining were well-known. She didn’t only condemn sugar, she disapproved of rich sauces and excessive seasonings as well. It was paramount to her to keep control of her diet.

“Don’t quarrel with me, Anne. I need you to enter into my feelings. You know I require distraction. In times such as these, it’s all that sustains me. I cannot bear the quiet. My thoughts prey on me so.”

As with the previous book, the surprise reveals weren’t surprising, although I did appreciate slowly learning more about Anne’s mother, and seeing that she wasn’t quite as horrible as Hart (and I) saw her.

I had a difficult time with Anne’s continued insistence that Hartford was a neer-do-well, when she had absolutely proof to continue in that believe, and when she received evidence contrary, she still continued in her mistaken belief.

Especially when we see Hartford’s insistence upon certain standards in his business practices.

Boys as young as ten were lowered down, sometimes hundreds of feet into the pits, via precarious baskets and ladders. Once inside, they were stuck underground for half the day in poorly ventilated darkness, consigned to crawling through narrow tunnels on their hands and knees and pulling heavy loads behind them.

Slavery had been outlawed in Ceylon in 1844. What workers they employed there would be paid for their labor. But it wouldn’t be enough. That was the entire point of it. Skirting standards, exploiting the miners, and giving absolute discretion to tyrannical loadmasters was all part of the business plan. None of it was, strictly speaking, against the law.

India wasn’t the only place with terrible dangerous mines.

Characters: Lady Anne Deveril, Mr. Felix Hartford, Lady Arundell, Julia Wychwood Blunt, Captain Blunt, Miss Evelyn Maltravers, Ahmad Malik, Miss Mira Malik, Stella Hobhouse, William Webb, Earl of March, Viscount Brookdale, Aunt Esther Brookdale, Horbury, Mr. Harris Fielding, Mrs. Neale, Ethel Neale, Viscountess Heatherton, Hortense, Jeanette, Mrs. Griffiths, Miss Amanda Trent, Gabriel Royce, Mr. Archer, Laura Archer, Edward Hayes

Cover by Kelly Wagner

Publisher: Berkley Romance

Rating: 7.5/10

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