Devil's Cub by Georgette HeyerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Whew. Heyer pulls this off, but just barely.
The Marquis of Vidal is a bad guy. For reals. He takes advantage of women (as long as they're ridiculous enough and low enough in social status); he gambles and drinks to excess; he gets into duels for stupid reasons, knowing that he will kill the man he's facing because he's done it before; he threatens women in his power; and it seems he really would do every terrible thing he says. (He tells Mary that he will CHOKE HER OUT and carry her if she doesn't do what he wants. I'm pretty sure that goes beyond "problematic.") He's like Darcy mixed with Wickham, if Darcy was also a pirate.
More or less.
But he's not really REALLY bad--at least not in the universe of the novel. He has his rules and he sticks to them. He is protective in his own way. And (spoiler) Mary falls in love with him as much as he falls in love with her, and she is able to curb his worst excesses.
Three quarters of the way through I was not going along with it. I wanted Mary to find a different solution for her problem. (Speaking of problem--the way Mary ends up *sort of* eloping with the marquis without really meaning to is a very clumsy way to get them to France with Mary relying on him and controlled by him. The series of decisions that led her to that point are out of character for her and quite silly. We have to overlook that and let the story unfold.) I hated him and wanted her to get away from a guy I consider dangerously misogynistic, even if my judgment is a touch anachronistic.
However, I'll admit, by the end she has pulled it off. Vidal is largely redeemed, Mary's love for him makes sense, and their HEA is best one the story could have produced.
It feels like someone bet the author that she couldn't successfully make an unlikeable blackguard like Vidal into a love interest, and she took the bet. And IMO whoever proposed the wager should have to pay up.
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