The Exploits and Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy

Book excerpt: Alethea, the youngest, most talented and high-spirited daughter of the Darcys, has married too hastily on the rebound. She soon discovers that her husband is not only a brute but that he has bizarre ideas about a wife's duty in the bedroom. She will have to flee, yet she knows he will pursue her. She must take drastic measures to foil his plans and protect herself. Thus she sets out to cross the Channel, masquerading as one Aloysius Hawkins, gentleman. Accompanied only by her redoubtable maid, Figgins, her plan is to join her elder sister, Camilla, in Italy. But events - always dramatic and at times life threatening - conspire to keep the sisters apart. Until the mysterious Titus Manningtree, in Italy to pursue a lost Titian painting - takes a hand in her complicated affairs ¿ Elizabeth Aston presents an array of memorable nineteenth-century characters - beautiful, naïve, mischievous and downright wicked - in this deliciously witty Regency comedy.