Map Your Story Beats

This is the part of writing a romance that has taken me the longest to come to terms with. It’s also the part that often has skeptics accusing the genre of being formulaic. There is definitely an element of formula, but so is there in a mystery or a thriller. It’s part of what draws many readers to a genre again and again, the satisfaction of knowing things will work out a certain way: the perpetrator will be caught, the hero will prevail, and the lovers will unite.

And not only that, but that the right number of obstacles will come in the way, reversals occur, and struggles conquered.

Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes

There are plenty of resources online that will give you the fundamentals of using beats in romance, but I find Hayes’s book to be the most useful. Although her subject is contemporary romance, readers of historical romance will still want most of the features she identifies in the journey toward true love.

Here I’ve taken her as a starting point and enlarged as the beats apply to and differ in historical romance. But I highly recommend getting her book. I refer to it often when I’m planning and writing. It’s also useful to see how your favorite historical romances align or not with her suggested beats.

Big Beat 1: The Set up

This is what it sounds like, literally setting the scene, putting the essential pieces in place. In historical, added to the situational aspect of this beginning is the need to establish a sense of time and place.

This can be done in a number of ways. A date and place heading is the simplest, but then you have to ensure that the writing that follows keeps reinforcing that feeling. It’s easy to slip into language that sounds too modern (or otherwise) for your intended setting.

Here’s one of my favorite beginnings, from Laura Kinsale’s Flowers from the Storm:

He liked radical politics and had a fondness for chocolate. Five years ago, the Honorable Miss Lacy-Grey had verifiably swooned on the occasion of his requesting her hand for a country dance—an example of that category of incidents which one’s friends found endlessly amusing and became fond of recalling ad nauseam in their cups. The circulating quip had been that a marriage proposal would have crippled the girl for life, and an offer of a baser sort killed her on the spot.

Kinsale, Laura. Flowers from the Storm (p. 1). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Note how there’s no super-flowery language, but the sense of period is immediate. We also really want to know who “he” is, yet can guess that he’s handsome and desirable based on what follows.

Small beat 2: Introducing one protagonist (H1 in Hayes’s examples)

The set up is more than just the first paragraphs, of course. The possibility of romance should definitely form part of this important beat. And introducing at least one of the protagonists is essential. Although we don’t get our protagonist’s name in the first paragraph of Flowers from the Storm, his presence is felt. And what follows this delightful omniscient POV opening completes the picture of the male protagonist in his POV—or what we expect him to be at any rate (warning: suggestive scene):

Since Christian lay now with his head pillowed in the smooth curve of her back, his fingers indolently sliding between her stocking and her skin just above a blue-and-yellow garter, he had to assume that his friends had been slightly out in their predictions. She seemed perfectly alive to him. Her ankles crossed prettily, waving gently back and forth in the air above him.

He shaped his palm over her buttock, gave the dimple in the small of her back a kiss and sat up, leaning on his elbow. “When will Sutherland be home?”

“Not for a fortnight. At the very least.” The former Miss Lacy-Grey rolled over, smiling, exposing breasts that had grown heavier, the slight, swelling thickness at her waist. They’d been lovers for nigh three months. Christian passed his gaze over the subtle changes and lifted his lashes, saying nothing.

Kinsale, Laura. Flowers from the Storm (pp. 1-2). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

But Christian is not an uncomplicated rake, and we soon discover that he’s actually a mathematical genius who collaborates with a Quaker mathematician. (I’ll save more about this for the second small beat.)

Another fabulous opening to set a scene and introduce H1 is in Eloisa James’s Two Dances and a Duke. James uses both the strategy of an identifying rubric and a skillfully written first few paragraphs:

April 14, 1814 Porterhouse Square, #38 Lord and Lady Sheffield’s ball in honor of their daughter’s debut

It was astonishing how easy it was to predict the future. In a mere five weeks, Miss Beatrice Valentine had discovered that she had no need to gaze at the stars or into a crystal ball. She could make accurate predictions merely by peering at the ballroom from the shelter of a large fern.

Query: Will the lady dangling tangerine ribbons from her topknot drop her fan in front of the young man with the violet waistcoat?

Prediction: A probability of nearly 100%. The lady in question had already dropped her fan three times in front of various men, as if she were sowing a field and hoping a husband would pop up—a version of that Greek myth about sowing dragon teeth and harvesting a crop of Spartan warriors.

James, Eloisa. Two Dances and a Duke (The Seduction Book 1) (p. 1). Kindle Edition.

In this excerpt, we also get the introduction of a protagonist, in this case a female named Beatrice Valentine, whose saucy tone and observant style make her instantly appealing.

Small beat 3: Introduce H2/meet cute

This introduction of the other half of the couple can be on its own or through the actual meet cute (one of the non-negotiables of romance). How closely they follow each other is a function of the style and scope of the book. In Flowers from the Storm, the meet cute is some way on from the introduction of H2. This is a nearly 500-page book, so it works. Also, the central obstacle is a complex setup in itself. The passage where Christian describes Maddy to her father occurs before the crisis that ends up throwing the couple together. (I won’t give any spoilers unless absolutely necessary.)

So this is our first view of Quaker Maddy Timms:

“I’ve yet to fathom it. No doubt I never will. How canst thou expect any real consideration from a person of his—” Archimedea Timms paused, searching for a suitable word. “—his ilk, Papa?”

“Wilt thou pour me a cup of tea, Maddy?” her father asked, in just the sort of amiable voice that left one with no room to start an effective argument.

“He is a duke, for one thing,” she said over her shoulder, a parting shot as she marched through the back dining room to locate Geraldine, since the parlor bell was in disorder. The time it took to find the maidservant, see water drawn and set to boil, and return to the parlor was not enough to make her forget the sequence of her thoughts. “A duke can scarcely be supposed to care seriously for such matters—the square is above thy left hand—as must be perfectly clear when his integration has not been prepared for the past week.”

“Thou shouldst not be impatient, Maddy. This sort of thing must be done with infinite care. He is taking his time. I admire him for it.” Her father’s searching fingers found the carved wooden numeral two and slid it into place as an exponent of s.

Kinsale, Laura. Flowers from the Storm (pp. 7-8). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Through this scene we understand that the father is blind, without actually being told. Maddy’s meet cute with Christian is in the second chapter, at the 4% mark. It has to be early because the inciting incident must come after it, for reasons that become clear if you read the book. They meet just before the meeting of the Royal Institution where Christian and her father are jointly presenting a mathematical paper.

At the far end of the dimly lit room, her papa sat in his low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat at one of the tables where the day’s newspapers had been shoved aside to make a large space. President Milner was absent. The other man seated there in the pool of candlelight was bent over a sheaf of papers with an intensity that Maddy had last seen in the students she helped teach at the First Day School. His elbows were spread, straining the tailoring of his midnight blue evening coat across broad shoulders, and as she came closer, he pushed back his dark hair impatiently with one hand—giving an excellent impression of some wild poet laboring in a garret over his art.

Suddenly, before she reached them, he threw down the pen and rose to face her in one swift motion, for all the world as if he wished to hide what he’d been doing.

He looked at her for an instant, and then smiled. The fervent student, the impassioned poet, both vanished in that seasoned gallantry. “Miss Timms,” he said, in just the way a duke would say it—calmly, with a slight bow. His eyes were dusky blue, his nose straight and strong, his clothing perfectly tailored and his bearing well-bred; and somehow, in spite of this polished veneer, he managed very well to resemble a complete and utter pirate.

Precisely as one had expected—although somewhat less decayed, in a physical sense, by his way of life than might have been supposed. He gave the impression of a firmly controlled energy, with nothing dilatory or degenerated about him—no softness at all to his solid and imposing frame. Next to him, her father looked fatally pale, as if he might dissolve into a wisp and vanish at any moment.

“My daughter Archimedea,” Papa said. “Maddy—this is the Duke of Jervaulx.”

Kinsale, Laura. Flowers from the Storm (pp. 23-24). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

She paints an incredibly appealing rake, at the same time as suggesting that Maddy is having a hard time responding negatively to him.

Of course, one of my personal favorite meet-cutes is that between Venetia and Damerel, quoted in the previous module. Another classic one is in Queen Charlotte, the Bridgerton collaboration between Julia Quinn and Shonda Rhimes. Charlotte is the first of the main characters to be introduced, but her meet-cute with the king is postponed for three chapters. Quinn can get away with this for a couple of reasons. One is that the popularity of the Bridgerton series is already well established. The other is that the TV series came first, so the foreshortening of the previous content makes the sequence completely acceptable. I imagine that most people reading the book (like me) will have already watched the series.*

And the meet-cute occurs when Charlotte tries—unsuccessfully—to escape her arranged marriage. I quote at some length here, because what comes through in the written text that isn’t obvious from the teleplay is Charlotte’s attraction to George:

She was leaving. She didn’t care that the ocean crossing from Cuxhaven had been so miserable she’d thrown up on Adolphus six times. She was returning to Mecklenburg-Strelitz if it killed her. And besides, Adolphus had deserved every drop of her vomit. It was his fault she’d been thrust into this situation in the first place. She backed up a few steps. Maybe if she took a running start . . .

“Hello, my lady.”

Charlotte nearly jumped out of her skin. She’d had no idea she wasn’t alone in the garden. A young man—older than she was, but still young—had come through a door she hadn’t even noticed.

She gave him a quick examination and immediately dismissed the idea that he worked for the palace and had been sent to drag her back to the chapel. He was obviously one of the wedding guests; his silver-gray ensemble was far too well-tailored for him to be anything but. He did not wear a wig over his dark hair, a fashion choice of which Charlotte approved. His eyebrows were also quite dark and would have looked ridiculous with a fluffy white mop perched atop his head.

On some other day—any other day—Charlotte would have judged his face to be quite pleasing. But not today. She had no time for such frivolity.

“Are you in need of assistance of some kind?” he asked.

She gave him a tight smile. “I am quite fine. Thank you.”

It was an obvious dismissal, but he just stood there, watching her with a rather inscrutable expression. Not unfriendly, just not, well, scrutable.

She flicked her hand toward the chapel.

“You can go back inside and wait with all the other gawkers.”

“I will,” he said. “But first, I am curious. What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly.

“You are clearly doing something,” he said, rather affably, to tell the truth.

She put one hand on her hip and waved her other arm in an arc that motioned to absolutely nothing. “I am not.”

He looked amused, and frankly, somewhat condescending. “You are.”

“I am not,” she ground out.

“You are.”

Himmel, he was annoying. “If you must know, I am trying to ascertain the best way to climb the garden wall.”

“Climb the . . .” He looked at the wall, then back at her. “Whatever for?”

Charlotte was so frustrated she wanted to cry. All she wanted to do was escape, and this complete stranger would not stop asking her questions. Worst of all, she had to conduct this conversation in English, which was a dreadful language. So unhelpful. In German, she could mash words together and make new ones, delightfully long and descriptive. Instead of saying, “I am jumping over the wall to escape my wedding,” she could describe the whole situation as preweddingwalljumping.

A German would know exactly what she meant.

The English? Bah.

“Please leave me be,” she said to the stranger. “I really must go.”

“But why?” he persisted.

“Because I think he may be a beast,” she burst out.

That got his attention. His brows—those lovely dark brows that would have looked so ridiculous under a wig—rose. “A beast.”

“Or a troll.”

He blinked a few times. “Who are we discussing exactly?”

“Well, that is impertinent. And it’s none of your business.” And then, because she was clearly losing her mind, she went and contradicted herself by telling him everything anyway. “The King,” she said desperately. “I am talking about the King.”

“I see.” His face grew thoughtful. It was a handsome face, Charlotte thought with a tinge of hysteria. Unlike the King, who was being hidden from her.

“No one will speak of him,” she said. “No one. He is clearly a beast. Or a troll.”

Quinn, Julia; Rhimes, Shonda. Queen Charlotte: Before Bridgerton Came a Love Story That Changed the Ton… (pp. 40-45). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Small beat 4: No way 1

Love at first sight for both protagonists doesn’t set up much tension or suspense—unless there’s a big obstacle in their way. So to start out with, you need to create some reluctance in at least one of them, or some circumstance that interferes with their potential romance. Here is where you begin to set up your trope:

• Enemies to Lovers
• Friends to Lovers
• Love Triangle
• False Relationship
• Forced proximity
• Second chance romance
• Opposites attract
• Soulmates/Fated mates
• Forbidden love
• Secret identity
• Slow burn
• Marriage of convenience
• Grumpy/sunshine pairing

There are more, and of course you can combine them in any way you want. For instance, Venetia is a combination of friends to lovers and love at first sight. What the trope does is also give you the basic framework for the expected beats. The false relationship trope has the embedded there’s no way this can work out quality embedded in it, at the same time as making the reader think propinquity!

A more recent false relationship plot is at the beginning of the first Bridgerton novel. Daphne and the Duke are both looking for ways to solve their difficulties in the marriage mart: Daphne because, although everyone likes her, no one is courting her; Hastings because he is beset by every matchmaking mama.

They temporarily solve their difficulties by pretending to be forming an attachment. This is the scene where it happens:

“Here is my plan,” Simon continued, his voice low and intense. “We shall pretend to have developed a tendre for each other. I won’t have quite so many debutantes thrown in my direction because it will be perceived that I am no longer available.”

“No it won’t,” Daphne replied. “They won’t believe you’re unavailable until you’re standing up before the bishop, taking your vows.”

The very thought made his stomach churn. “Nonsense,” he said. “It may take a bit of time, but I’m sure I will eventually be able to convince society that I am not anyone’s candidate for marriage.”

“Except mine,” Daphne pointed out.

“Except yours,” he agreed, “but we will know that isn’t true.”

“Of course,” she murmured. “Frankly, I do not believe that this will work, but if you’re convinced . . .”

“I am.”

“Well, then, what do I gain?”

“For one thing, your mother will stop dragging you from man to man if she thinks you have secured my interest.”

“Rather conceited of you,” Daphne mused, “but true.”

Simon ignored her gibe. “Secondly,” he continued, “men are always more interested in a woman if they think other men are interested.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, quite simply, and pardon my conceit”—he shot her a sardonic look to show that he hadn’t missed her earlier sarcasm—“but if all the world thinks I intend to make you my duchess, all of those men who see you as nothing more than an affable friend will begin to view you in a new light.”

Quinn, Julia. Bridgerton Collection Volume 1: The First Three Books in the Bridgerton Series (Bridgertons) (p. 79). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Of course, their ruse works. But Quinn laces the entire subterfuge with barely concealed growing love and lust between them, so the reader knows what’s really going on.

Another delightful fake relationship is in Georgette Heyer’s Cotillion. In this case, Kitty Charing—who has been sequestered with her crotchety, wealthy adoptive father—is to inherit all her adoptive father’s (Mr. Penicuik) wealth if she marries one of his great nephews, of which there are four available. But Kitty doesn’t want to be this prize (especially since the one she had a crush on, Jack, has not responded to the old man’s summons) and desperately wants the chance to go to London for the season, to experience some of life before she’s shackled.

She first thinks she might run away, but only gets as far as the local posting house, where she bumps into Freddy—a late arrival to the bizarre family gathering. He doesn’t need or want her fortune, having plenty of his own. In fact, at the beginning, Kitty holds Freddy in active dislike and disdain, so it’s a combination of dislike to love and false relationship (although she quickly realizes he’s neither as foolish nor as scheming as she initially thought). And so:

Miss Charing swallowed another mouthful of punch. A gentle glow was spreading through her veins, dispelling the melancholy which had possessed her. It would have been too much to have said that she was restored to happiness, but she no longer despaired. A certain exhilaration infused her brain, which seemed all at once to be able quite easily to master difficulties that, a few minutes before, had appeared so insoluble. She sat bolt upright in her chair, staring straight ahead, the fingers of one hand tightening unconsciously round her tumbler.

Mr Standen, glad to be left in peace to wrestle with the second of the problems confronting him, meditatively rubbed the rim of his quizzing-glass up and down the bridge of his nose.

‘Freddy!’ said Miss Charing suddenly, turning her expressive eyes towards him.

He gave a slight start, and let his quizzing-glass fall. ‘Thinking of something else!’ he excused himself.

‘Freddy, you are quite sure you don’t want to marry me, aren’t you?’

He looked a little alarmed, for she spoke with a degree of urgency which made him feel uneasy. ‘Yes,’ he said. He added apologetically: ‘Very fond of you, Kit, always was! Thing is, not a marrying man!’

‘Then, Freddy, will you be so very obliging as to be betrothed to me?’ said Miss Charing breathlessly.

Heyer, Georgette. Cotillion (Regency Romances Book 12) (p. 50). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.

Of course, much chaos and confusion ensues, and gradually Freddy emerges as a hapless hero who actually loves Kitty very much—and she recognizes the many ways in which he’s been a true friend, his essential kindness, and falls in love with him.

For other examples of tropes, look no further than the popular rom-coms. Enemies to lovers is so common—one of my favorites being Two Weeks’ Notice, with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant. But this is also “opposites attract,” because he is a spoiled rich real estate magnate who thinks having to share a helicopter with another family is deprivation, and she is an activist lawyer living in a small apartment in Coney Island with her parents.

All of these tropes introduce a potential “no way are they going to get together,” which sets up tension and conflict.

BIG BEAT #2: FALLING IN LOVE

Once you’ve established the couple’s meeting and how they related to each other initially, you have to lead them along the path to falling in love—despite or because of what exists between them. Hayes breaks this section down quite formulaically, but I think there’s a fair amount of latitude here, and the process has to feel organic to the story you’re telling.

If it helps you to have the small beats, here is what Hayes says:

• No way #2 and inkling this could work
• Deepening desire
• Maybe this will work
• Midpoint of LOVE plot thrust

Even if you don’t adhere exactly to those smaller beats, there’s no question that by the middle, the fact that your two protagonists are in love should be clear. And they can’t have gotten there in a straight line. Give them:

• Misunderstandings
• Conflicts—internal and external
• Something they’ve overcome to get to that point

Using Daphne and Hastings, for instance, the “no way #2” is that, even with their palpable attraction, Hastings does not want to be the cause of Daphne’s inability to fulfill her fondest wish of having a family, and so holds himself back. It’s not until Daphne breaks through his resistance and persuades him that if he doesn’t marry her she will be ruined that their real love has a chance to be expressed physically and emotionally.

And that takes us into the next big beat.

BIG BEAT #3: RETREATING FROM LOVE

Of course, if your lovers are mad for each other by the middle or so of the book, something has to happen to upset their plans, or make them think again, distrust, doubt—in a way that is plausible to the reader. There’s nothing worse than thinking one of the couple is just being stupid to have formed some suspicion or belief that makes them turn away from the other one. Whatever causes this beat has to be embedded and prepared in the story.

The retreat generally comes from one or the other of the lovers, but the beat can combine elements of retreat from both.

In The Duke and I it starts with Daphne. Once the two are married and enjoying a sex-filled honeymoon, Daphne makes the shocking discovery that when Simon said he couldn’t have children, he really meant he wouldn’t have children. Her ignorance of the facts of life postponed this discovery (although how she figures it out is quite different in the book from the TV series).

Daphne sat up abruptly, the blankets falling to her waist. With shaking fingers she lit the candle that sat on her bedside table.

Simon opened a sleepy eye. “What’s wrong?”

She said nothing, just stared at the wet spot on the other side of the bed. His seed.

“Daff?”

He’d told her he couldn’t have children. He’d lied to her.

“Daphne, what’s wrong?” He sat up. His face showed his concern.

Was that, too, a lie? She pointed. “What is that?” she asked, her voice so low it was barely audible.

“What is what?” His eyes followed the line of her finger and saw only the bed. “What are you talking about?”

“Why can’t you have children, Simon?”

His eyes grew shuttered. He said nothing.

“Why, Simon?” She practically shouted the words.

“The details aren’t important, Daphne.” His tone was soft, placating, with just a hint of condescension.

Daphne felt something inside of her snap. “Get out,” she ordered.

His mouth fell open. “This is my bedroom.”

“Then I’ll get out.” She stormed out of the bed, whipping one of the bedsheets around her.

Simon was on her heels in a heartbeat. “Don’t you dare leave this room,” he hissed.

“You lied to me.”

“I never—”

“You lied to me,” she screamed. “You lied to me, and I will never forgive you for that!”

“Daphne—”

“You took advantage of my stupidity.” She let out a disbelieving breath, the kind that came from the back of one’s throat, right before it closed up in shock. “You must have been so delighted when you realized how little I knew about marital relations.”

“It’s called making love, Daphne,” he said.

“Not between us, it’s not.”

Quinn, Julia. Bridgerton Collection Volume 1: The First Three Books in the Bridgerton Series (Bridgertons) (pp. 223-224). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

This scene comes about two-thirds of the way through the book. And then, there’s a scene where the reader might suspect a rapprochement, a thawing of Daphne’s feelings. But she maneuvers the duke into completing the act, and after that, he’s the one who is violently angry. He goes away.

The brilliance of this part of the book is that, even though they are temporarily separated and seemingly irreconcilable, we are shown that each of them is tortured with complicated feelings, that love is still very much present in them—even the duke, who is the classic hero who is guarding himself against vulnerability. The way is open, but they are both in a terrible place emotionally.

In fact, Simon’s retreat is due not to Daphne’s actions directly, but in answer to his own deep trauma over his father—a theme that has been set up from the prologue.

He’d fled because he couldn’t bear the way he’d been with her. She’d reduced him to the stuttering, stammering fool of his childhood. She’d rendered him mute, brought back that awful, choking feeling, the horror of not being able to say what he felt.

He just didn’t know if he could live with her if it meant going back to being the boy who could barely speak. He tried to remind himself of their courtship—their mock-courtship, he thought with a smile—and to remember how easy it had been to be with her, to talk with her. But every memory was tainted by where it had all led—to Daphne’s bedroom that hideous morning, with him tripping over his tongue and choking on his own throat.

And he hated himself like that.

Quinn, Julia. Bridgerton Collection Volume 1: The First Three Books in the Bridgerton Series (Bridgertons) (p. 260). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

To use the example of Venetia again, the scene where Damerel says goodbye to Venetia and shatters her certainty that he loved her occurs at about the 70% mark in the book. I’ve quoted that scene at length in Module 3, Lesson 1 so I won’t repeat it here. We leave Damerel when Venetia does, only following her to London and witnessing her suffering, her feeling that all is hopeless, while her well-meaning aunt and uncle keep her ignorant of information that will relieve her despair:

To oblige her, Venetia took a macaroon and sat nibbling it while her aunt returned to the task of persuading her that solitary expeditions must never be undertaken by young ladies of ton. Venetia let her run on in her discursive way, for she could not tell her that she went sightseeing in a dogged attempt to occupy her mind, any more than she could tell her that she was never alone, because a ghost walked beside her, soundless and invisible, yet so real that she felt sometimes that if she stretched out her hand it would find his.

Heyer, Georgette. Venetia (Regency Romances Book 18) (pp. 275-276). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.

Venetia doesn’t make any attempt to get Damerel back until the startling revelation that her uncle had seen Damerel before calling on her, and had wrested a promise from him that he would forsake Venetia. This assures her that he let her go not because he didn’t love her, but because of his moral scruples. She discovers this, along with the fact that everyone in her life except for her knew that her mother was still alive, that she had been divorced from her father, not died, and had been married to someone else for fifteen years. (Note: I found this one fact a little bit unbelievable.)

And this nicely leads us to the next big beat.

Big Beat #4: Fighting for Love

As you might expect, the lightning bolt of revelation for Venetia spurs her to start figuring out how to not just get back to Damerel, but to overcome the fastidious scruples he had about ruining her socially. Her outrageously behaved mother is the skeleton in the closet that makes everyone over careful of Venetia’s behavior and desperate to ensure she doesn’t follow in that mother’s shoes. So Venetia decides the only way to make Damerel see that he can marry her is to effect her own social ruin—or threaten to. In this, she cajoles the cooperation of her mother, whom she secretly visits the day after she sees her at the theater.

Her fight to get back to Damerel is herculean for a maiden of her time. Her declaration of intent to her aunt starts the avalanche of events that lead her back to her true love:

‘Don’t waste a thought on him!’ said Venetia. ‘Don’t waste a thought on any of the eligible suitors you’ve found for me, dear ma’am! There is more of my mama in me than you have the least idea of, and the only eligible husband for me is a rake!’

Heyer, Georgette. Venetia (Regency Romances Book 18) (p. 320). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.

At that point, the reader is cheering wildly.

She goes back to Yorkshire on the stage coach and shows up at the priory in the evening to discover a nearly blind drunk Damerel. He tries to stick to his guns (despite greeting her with a passionate embrace before he can get himself under control), but she plays her ace. She persuaded her mother to write a letter inviting her to return to Paris with them to live, and mix in their racy set. This is, of course, guaranteed social ruin for her, and it suffices to persuade Damerel that marrying him would be far preferable for her reputation (and for him, of course).

But all is not won at that point. Venetia’s uncle pursues her there and tries his utmost to get her to give up her notion of marrying Damerel. In other words, Venetia must fight tooth and nail for her true love.