The Earl I Ruined

Show Notes

What is an 'unforgivable act'? This week, the rakes explore one heroine's egregious behavior, and the lengths she'll go to to make things right. Peckham's The Earl I Ruined is a Georgian historical romance that's full of surprises: kisses in a wig closet, devastating reveals, and the fresh scent of a pining hero. Join us, sinners! It's bound to be a wild time.

Books Referenced

The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham

The Duke I Tempted by Scarlett Peckham

The Lord I Left by Scarlett Peckham

Whitney, My Love by Judith McNaught

Scandal in Spring by Lisa Kleypas

Ruined by Rumor by Alyssa Everett

Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas

The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton by Miranda Neville

Beyond Desire by Thea Devine

Captivated, Tales of Erotic Romance

Works Cited:

West Elm Caleb and the Feminist Panopticon by Rayne Fisher-Quann

Interview with Scarlett Peckham on Romance at a Glance

Ask Scarlett! Whoa!mance Podcast

Curl up with your Favorite Author: Thea Devine

Transcript

Emma

Welcome to Reformed Rakes, a historical romance podcast that is surprised by the consequences of its own actions. I'm Emma, a law librarian writing about justice and romance of the substack, Restorative Romance.

Beth

I'm Beth, and I'm on BookTok under the name bethhaymondreads.

Chels

My name is Chels. I'm the writer of the romance substack, The Loose Cravat, a romance book collector and booktoker under the username chels_ebooks.

Emma

Today, we're talking about The Earl I Ruined by Scarlett Peckham. We're avowed fans of the Peckham on this podcast. We've talked about her books in our Taxonomy of Rakes and Cheating episodes. And one of the reasons we love her is that she's writing books that remind us of older historical romance in a lot of ways. She's a fan of Cecilia Grant and Laura Kinsale, two authors that we love. And she's talked about her relationship to old school romance and how it influences her writing, not just the product, but the questions she asked for her characters and her plots. The Earl I Ruined is the second book in the Charlotte Street series and follows Lady Constance Stonewall and Julian Haywood, Earl of Apthrop. Those titles and names might make this book seem like a staid Regency, but it is anything but. Though Julian is now an Earl with a stable income, he wasn't always. Julian has an association with Charlotte Street, the BDSM Pleasure House that Peckham establishes in the first book of the series. He has worked there to supplement his income. He's not embarrassed of his work, but its public revelation would mean ruin for his reputation and family that he's tried so hard to preserve by doing this work.

Emma

Constance, quite the gossip, has put two and two together about Julian's whereabouts and his secret keeping, only she hasn't arrived at four. Instead, she thinks Julian is a customer of the Pleasure House and has nurtured this rumor to the point where it's printed in gossip rags. Readers of bodice rippers will sometimes get asked, "do you know of any gender-flipped bodice rippers?" Meaning, were the heroine in a straight relationship does a violent act to the hero? The Earl I Ruined is sometimes my answer. Constance is not personally violent to Julian, but Peckham makes it clear that what Constance has done effectively threatening the 18th century version of doxing him is a violence.

Emma

And Julian, who has long harbored affection for Constance, sister of one of his dearest friends, is acutely violated by her actions. This book is full of people doing bad things and having to atone for and fix them. Total Reformed Rakes bait.

Emma

I want to start off talking about our relationship with Peckham, particularly because my relationship with Peckham changed as I read The Charlotte Street series. I think I've read everything that Peckham has published, at least full-length novels. I've read The Rakess first and then went back to The Charlotte Street series. I was really intimidated by the concept of this being centered at a BDSM club. I think that was really just my own prudishness coming out, because once I read the series, I realized the connections between the series and a lot of the older historical romances that I like. So what are your relationships with Peckham and how did you find her? Or what do you think about her as an author?

Beth

Someone asked me on one of my TikToks if I knew of any books that had a woman rake. And obviously, you do the barest googling, and you will find The Rakess by Scarlet Peckham. So I read it, I think, in a day and was kind of obsessed after that. I think her, we'll talk about this later, but just her applying a typically gendered story to different gendered characters and letting it play out is a staple of hers. I really enjoy that aspect of her work.

Emma

I think I just remembered that I read The Rakess because you made a TikTok that was like, Don't read this book. Read The Rakess.

Beth

Yeah, because there's one book that was pretending to be feminist and forward thinking or or whatever buzzword. But I was just like, But this Scarlett Peckham actually did this really well. Just read that book.

Chels

I started with The Lord I Left, which is actually the third book in this series, and that one is still pretty dear to my heart. I'm actually currently rereading it. It was just really unique out of a lot of things that I had read. And she was someone that I was really excited about. I went back and did everything out of order, which is my favorite thing to do. If you don't know, I don't like to read series in order. I don't care about doing that at all. I absolutely adore her. I think the only one I haven't read so far is Portrait of a Duchess, but I should be getting that from my library soon.

Emma

Yeah, I would say the series you could definitely read out of order. I read it in order, just because I haven't... I think it was when my holds came in. But I think I picked up this one again for the podcast and I was like, it was very easy to jump in without having read the first one very recently.

Chels

Yeah, you could totally do that.

Emma

Lady Constance Stonewall has made a huge mistake. She had, until recently, attempted to make a match between her friend, Gillian Bastian, and Julian Hayward. That was until she heard rumors that Julian regularly patronized a house of iniquity. She does not know exactly what he's up to there, but she knows it is not respectable, and she assumes that he has been visiting in order to be whipped and hit sexually. Constance spreads the rumor in poem form in a private gossip circular under a pseudonym, though Julian's coded identity is clear. However, the circular falls into the hands of a publisher of a newspaper, and now rumors of Julian's sexual preferences are running through London. This is just as a waterways bill he has been working on for years as coming up to a vote in Parliament. A bill that relies on a coalition with some evangelical members of Parliament that would be extremely judgmental of any rumors. Julian is earnestly surprised when Constance confesses being the origin of the poem. He knew her penchant for gossip, but up until this point he had been placing Constance on a pedestal, having been in love with her for years. He is further leveled when Constance offers to marry him and use her family's wealth and places society to distract from the rumors.

Emma

The subsequent broken engagement would ruin Constance, but she plans to go to the continent and live away from England and her family in order to save Julian. Julian has been frequently at the club, but is a worker, not a patron. At a family dinner celebrating the engagement, Constance tells the story of when she first fell in love with Julian, keeping close to the truth. She had been raised in France and when she returned to England at 14, she became immediately enamored with Julian, 18 years old at the time. They were together at a house party, and she attempts all sorts of cheeky behavior to get his attention until she eventually launches herself at him from rose bush in an attempt to kiss him. Julian scolds and Constance is chastised. In the present day, she then lies and creates an apology from Julian, including a mess of roses and a sweet note to indicate when she fell in love with him. Constance excuses herself from the table after telling the story. Julian also remembers that summer where he was preoccupied with his new title and the looming debts of the Earldom. He did not realize the extent to which he had wounded Constance with his dressing down.

Emma

Julian meets Constance in a powdering closet for wigs, and they had their first kiss. And Julian realizes that Constance has much less experience than he imagined. Her forwardness and cavalier attitude toward her reputation made him think that she might have even already had sex. Their interaction makes it clear she doesn't even have much experience with kissing. The Duke of Westmead, Constance's brother, catches Constance and Julian in the closet, and their ruse seems to have been bought by her family, and Constance proposing an engagement ball to show the family support of Julian.

Emma

Julian and Constance attended the together as a first outing of an engaged couple. They overhear gossip, and Constance has a steely attitude toward it, thinking that Julian is more sensitive to the rumors since they involve him. And she finds herself upset by the mocking jeers, and Julian surprisingly prepared to handle being ostracized. He guides her through the evening and Constance regains her composure until she sees her old friend, Gillian Bastian, who she initially intended for Julian with Lord Harlan Stoke, who both Constance and Julian have histories with. Gillian gives Constance the cut direct, embarrassing her in front of the entire audience of the opera.

Emma

Julian leads Constance to their box, and she's able to regain her composure, with both of them alluding to their own reasons why Stoke would encourage Gillian to cut the couple who are not fully disclosed into each other. After Constance calms down, they're able to enact another portion of their plan, which is Constance asking her godmother for marital guidance. Her godmother is Lady Spence, wife of the conservative parliamentarian Julian needs to secure the votes for his bill. Lady Spence has always thought Constance is untoward and leaps a chance to save her soul and control her personality a little bit. At a luncheon with the Spences, Constance starts to see the utility of Julian's personality and political social settings. She's always thought of him as Lord Bore, but his staidness and reasonableness allows him to move her through politics without false flattery. She begins to see him as calculating and performative, both of which are virtuous to her. After the dinner, Henry Evesham, publisher of the newspaper that published the original poem about Julian, speaks to Julian and suggests that he is attempting to find the source of the rumors in an effort to close down Charlotte Street, regardless of what he will uncover also about Julian in the process.

Emma

This adds weight to Julian not wanting Constance to dig any deeper into the rumor herself. Julian asked Constance for all the information about how she came to suspect that he was a patron of Charlotte Street. Constance revealed she spoke to a woman she did not know at a party while Julian was dancing with Gillian Bastian. And the woman alluded to Julian's Wednesday night activities referencing a taste for leather. Constance meant to ignore the rumor, but then Julian asked her about betrothal gifts and Constance was worried that Julian was in immediate danger and looked at Julian's daily calendar to discover where he went on Wednesdays and found anonymous allusions to sex texts. Constance leaves the woman at the party is a theater actress. Given the information she had of the woman's dress from her mantua maker, Constance asks Julian to not keep his Wednesday appointments, and he is furious that she thinks he would risk their ruse for just sex, although he's actually risking desolation since he loses income every night he skips a night at Charlotte Street. He puts out that would be reckless, and actually she's the one reckless with care for other people. She believes that he has always thought her reckless.

Emma

Quote, since that day in Devon, an event referenced a few times at this point in the book. But not yet explained.

Emma

Constance says, Perhaps I am reckless because I wasn't trying to get his attention that bloody day. I was trying to get yours and storms out crying. Constance then remembers the day in Devon as a day at the house party where after she returns to England the second time, she's learned how to dress and carry herself to attract the attention of men, and she aims to gain Julian's attention. She mostly ignores Julian in an attempt to encourage him to make a move and then finally begins a flirtation with Lord Harlan Stoke to make Julian jealous. But instead of starting his own flirtation, Julian takes her aside and warns her that Stoke is not kind and she might be putting herself into a situation where she could be harmed. This embarrasses Constance, and she doubles down on the flirtation with Stoke. But then Constance does find herself alone with Stoke, and Stoke throws himself at her. Constance attempts to signal to Stoke that he has misread her intentions, but he does not relent until she stabbed her in the neck with her fan. Julian happens upon them, and Constance is unable to find her voice to explain as Stoke sends him away.

Emma

Stoke stops all flirtation with Constance and takes up with a 15 year old Lady Jessica Ashe. Constance thinks to warn Jessica, but keeps silent out of embarrassment. But Constance later hears that Jessica became pregnant and would never have a season. Strengthening Constance's resolve to use whisper networks to talk about men's bad behavior, including Julian's perceived perversities that she has gossiped about. When Julian arrives to apologize for upsetting Constance with a mess of roses, he thinks back to his perspective on that Devon day when he was immediately taken with Constance that she seemed to be interested in Stoke and Julian is preoccupied with his looming debts, now even larger because of his own bad investments. He also realizes that she thinks he is judging her for Stoke's attention rather than trying to honor her wishes. He asks her what her aim was for trying to get his attention, and she says, Perhaps a correction of our encounter in the Garden Maze? He kisses her sweetly and says, Next time, just tell me what it is you want. Constance surprises Julian with cleaning and decorating his tutor era home that was somewhat decrepit. And while she's there, she discovers a box of his sex toys that she did not recognize as such.

Emma

In part motivated by embarrassment and wishing she would feel similarly embarrassed. Julian begins to explain to Constance the exact nature of what goes on at Charlotte Street. But as he begins a demonstration, his family arrives at his home. Constance has told them of their engagement against Julian's wishes. Arriving is Julian's mother, his sister, Margaret, and a small child that Julian introduces as his ward. Constance immediately believes to be Julian's by-blow. Julian once again chastises his Constance or defying his wishes, and she explains her sympathies with his family, being kept away from him as she was as a child from her family. And that she is now volunteering to do again after their engagement is broken. She points at all the work she's been doing socially to save him and mentions her lack of sleep or her dreaming of him and storms away. Julian sneaks into her room that night and proposes in earnest, but Constance believes he's just trying to be noble. He attempts to confess her love to her, but she carves a distinction between his feelings and his past actions. He has treated her with disdain and judgment for five years. She counters another solution to get through the next week and a half, collapsing their public and private behavior so that they pretend to be in love at every moment of their engagement.

Emma

This includes acting as lovers, but Julian has firm boundaries with what he will and won't do. He guides her through getting herself off without touching her, but refuses to let her help him. They then fall into an easy lie of public and private affection. Julian seems revived by the collapse, but it strains Constance. She seems distressed after they have a political success at a dinner party, and Julian arrives at her home after midnight for the public to try and make her happy. Her brother, the Duke, notices her distress and tries to offer an out from engagement. And in her lies to Archer, Constance realizes that her lies about loving Julian and wanting to marry him are actually true, distressing her even more. Julian's reform bill passes, but the threat of exposure still looms. Gillian visits Constance, and Constance tries to warn her of Harlan Stoke's bad behavior, but Gillian will hear none of it. A conversation between Constance and Margaret, Julian's sister, makes it clear that Margaret had a former acquaintance with Stoke. Julian overhears Constance and Margaret talking, with Constance insisting her charm is the most mostly a smoke and a mirror's act. He dismisses the others in the room and insists to Constance that she does have virtue he admires.

Emma

He goes down on her and she thinks he might propose in earnest one more time, and this time she would say yes, but instead he tells her to accept nothing less from the lover. At their engagement ball, Constance and Julian are sharing their goodbyes and she asks him to please let her pleasure him. As they're hooking up, she accidentally pulls on a curtain revealing the couples to the party. Julian immediately sees it as a reason not to break the engagement and proposes again and she accepts. There's still so much conflict to resolve. Julian has to reveal fully his past at Charlotte Street. Constance thinks he's confessing to siring a child, but then he reveals that his ward is actually his sister and Harlan Stoke's daughter. Julian also tells his work history to Constance, and she's non-plust, having always enjoyed courting scandal. They have sex for the first time and all seems well. But then later Julian comes to her house and asks questions of Constance's conversations with Julian, Harlan Stokes's fiancé. Julian is accusing his sister of blackmail. Julian is immediately suspicious that Constance gossiped about Margaret's illegitimate child, even though Constance did not know about the parentage when she spoke with Julian.

Emma

His lack of trust in Constance makes her feel like their marriage will never work. So at their wedding, she never shows up, instead of fleeing to Italy as originally intended. In addition, she publishes a letter in the newspaper about her secret gossip, circular identity, and sends a tale that makes it seem like she planted the rumors about Julian in order to trap him into marriage. Julian finds Constance by writing through the rain and immediately falls ill when he finds her. They're able to forgive each other, and Archer, the duke finds the couple and shows Constance what Julian has published: a confession of the truth about his past, which he trades it to the publisher so Evesham would stop investigating Charlotte Street at large. The couple has a tiny private wedding and then they have some great sex. The end.

Emma

So I think a good start to talk about this book is the theme of private and public behavior, especially considering that the conflict starts with a disclosure by Constance of what she thinks is Julian's private life and then we get a fake engagement, which is the ultimate tension between private and public trope. A lot of Constance and Julian's conflict also stems from misunderstandings between each other's private interpretations of each other's public actions. I don't think these things are unique to Peckham's attempt at this trope, but I do think the result is different, or at least she seems more interested in different consequences or tensions here. What do you make of how she handles these questions?

Chels

I love that Julian's private life is so seemingly incongruous with his personal one. In other stories, Julian would publicly be like a rake or a libertine. But in this one, he's so staid that he earns himself the nickname Lord Bore by Constance. So he's not really putting on... I wouldn't say it was a staid persona in public. This is just as much as part of him as the kinky inter-role-play man that Constance later finds in her bedroom. I think that's partially why he and Constance get off on the wrong foot. He loves who she is, but he sees facets of her personality is something that not everyone should have access to. So he lectures her about keeping that private for her own good. I also.

Emma

Think the private and public is actually a really good way to talk about the first kiss, which I think is a scene that we all really like, because I just want to talk about it because it's such a good first kiss. Constance pulls Julian into a wig closet. He's expecting to find her at least in a real room, like he looks in other rooms first before getting pulled into the wig closet. So she's making the whole thing much more intimate from the jump. And in the scene, we're really dealing with Julian's revelations about Constance's public persona that might be different from her private reality, an experience that he's already grappling with himself but didn't really think of as something that Constance had to deal with. He has a staid political persona versus what he does for work and what he enjoys in the bedroom. The tension comes up again when Julian asks for the final days of their engagement to be real, to have these bookends of their relationship being defined by what they're doing in private and what they're doing in public.

Beth

Yeah, back to the kiss. I think it's one of my favorite kisses I've ever read. We've been talking about one of their first mask off moments together where they really see the other person for who they are. Constance is the one who contrives this moment. They're at a dinner, she leaves, and she's expecting Julian to come find her. Because they need to prove that their relationship is real, she wants her brother to find them to further cement this reality of their engagement. Then it turns into this confession from Constance that she doesn't really know how to kiss and hinting at this vulnerability because Julian's always assumed that Constance likely wouldn't be a virgin if they ever got married. I don't want to say Constance's public persona is an act. I like what Chels said, where it's just one aspect of her personality, I think. But she does try to socially engineer quite a bit. I think that's tied a lot with her public persona. Yeah, I think.

Chels

It's such a good first kiss. And I believe it happens before you get that flashback to Harlan Stoke, and his assault was likely Constance's actual first kiss ever. And so after she defends herself, he scathingly tells her that she kisses like a goat, which I'm sure is like an insult that was still ringing at her head at that point. So as Beth mentioned, she's initially bad at kissing, and she's nervous about it. And she didn't magically become skilled when kissing someone who cares about her, but it's just this really, really sweet moment where he guides her and they're both just so into it.

Emma

I love the part in the closet where in Julian, he thinks that he's like, I always thought Constance wouldn't be a virgin, but he also like, I wouldn't care. And this comes up a few different times because she's worried about him thinking that she's too forward. That's why he's trying to tamper her down. She's thinking that he's assuming the worst about her. But to him, her not being a virgin would not be the worst thing. Those are totally different parameters of how they're thinking about it. I think that gets at something that we're going to talk about later with ruination and who gets ruined and whatnot. I think it's like, ruination has to happen both in a small and big scale. For Constance, it's like, Constance can't be ruined for Julian. He loves her so much. There is no thing that would be upsetting that these actions for her that would ruin it. Even her really terrible actions, he has a trouble ruining her in his mind when you and she hurts him.

Chels

I think that's something that Peckham really deals with in this 18th century model. It's like, Constance is very wealthy. It really doesn't matter if she's a virgin. She doesn't have to get married. She's not really interested in marriage. She hasn't really thought about it. Julian has a similar attitude where it's like, the virginity is not this prized possession that we see later in Victorian sexual mores. I'm glad that Peckham pulls that out and has it be less of a priority for this couple.

Chels

Yeah, and also she's so wealthy too, that I think that she knows that she can land on her feet in a lot of different ways. So her concerns aren't really... I think that's how she gets herself into trouble in the first place, Julian. She isn't really quite used to thinking about the cause and effect of things. So the virginity thing, I don't think is really maybe so much on her mind, except for how Julian perceives it personally and the way that she interprets that is just because of the way that he's acted towards her and not necessarily about any deep seed beliefs that she has that she needs to be a virgin.

Emma

Talking about Julian and Constance reacting things differently, I think we can talk a little bit about how gender works in this book because I think Peckham has an interesting approach for it in all of her novels. Sometimes I'm wary of describing something as gender flipped because it reminds me of how when people will call something like reverse grumpy sunshine as if it's a reverse because the woman is grumpy. Gender flip, in general, it's like, well, women can be anything, men can be anything. Why are we flipping anything? But Peckham does seem to have an interest in changing or flipping some dynamics in heterosexual romance. She talks about this at length in her author's note of The Rakess. What does it mean for a woman to be a Rake? What if she remains a woman in that gender identity but takes on the persona of a rake? Here we have a heroine, Constance, who does the unforgivable thing, which, like I said in our introduction, reminds me of bodice rippers or the beginning of the relationship. The hero does something really violent. Constance is not physically violent towards Julian or sexually violent towards Julian, but I think it's accurate to describe the doxing of a sex worker as a violent act.

Emma

And Julian is the character whose reputation needs to be saved by an engagement. He's also a sex worker, and both of these traits are generally reserved for heroines in historical romance. But Peckham does not do a one to one flip here. Both characters genders affect these new plot points in new ways. So how do you think the characters genders relate to the genre plot points that Peckham assigns to them?

Chels

I've been thinking about this so much the second time around. The way that Constance weaponizes gossip, I think, is very gendered here, not because women are the only ones who gossip, but because the platform that she's built for herself is really the only way that she can visualize herself protecting other women. In a world where men often emerge unscathed after hurting women, even if those acts are publicly exposed, this whisper network can be a powerful tool for self-protection. This is something that we see online today pretty frequently, women speaking to each other about the alarming behavior of men in their community as a warning. But what can happen is that you get bad actors or people with personal vendors using these networks to inflame a sense of rage and hurt for profit. I've been thinking about West Elm, Caleb, on TikTok. A few women may post about the sky that they had bad experience with dating, so some of the accusations were serious, but the ones that the Internet eventually latched on to justify doxing him were not. So he wasn't really any longer a person on a dating app like a shitty guy in a city packed full of similarly shitty guys.

Chels

He was a curiosity and a meme and a source of such as indignation to be used by corporations to cash in on or uninvolved, influencer-seeking clout. So I think this has some similarities to how Harlan Stoke, the villain of the story, used Constance to air out Julian's dirty laundry and discredit him, and how the religious publications, Saints and Stators generated public outrage and mockery in the name of justice of exposing crimes to their aristocracy, when in reality they didn't care about that so much. They just wanted to use the salacious accusations against Julian to sell more papers. This gets me to this quote from Rain Fisher-Kwan, who has a substack essay called West Elm, Caleb and the Feminist Panopticon, where she says, I feel like the ongoing trend of mass surveillance based in puritanical ethics needs to be called out when it is most visible. I believe that the reaction to people like Caleb, however distasteful they may be, normalizes a standard of violent and punitive, participative spectacle that can and will swiftly be turned against more vulnerable people for even less reason. Julian is an aristocrat and a man. He might be ruined by the scandal in theory, but there's a floor to how low he can sink.

Chels

If this happened to other people who didn't have that level of power and who are similarly susceptible to this level of gossip, think of what ruination would look like. It would be something much more dire. This is something that I think Peckham was thinking about because she told the Wellman's podcast that The Early Rune is born out of a launch of musings about outing, public shaming, call out culture, toxic masculinity, paternalism, and my annoyance over the fate of Emma and Emma.

Beth

I like that you said that Julian had a floor to his rumination because I was going to ask the question like, do we think Julian's class protected him? Yes, I think we do. Yeah, I was just thinking what would be.

Chels

The worst thing that would happen to him in this scenario? Could he even get kicked out of the House of Lords?

Beth

No, yeah. He would just still retain his position, I would think. And then he gets cut, socially cut. I think he's maybe used to it. When he and Constance attend that party, he's familiar with getting bad treatment.

Beth

But he still has access to those parties, and some of those people still talk to him. So it's not great. I'm not saying Julian's having a fun time, but if this happened to someone else who was not a man or not in the peerage, he would just be your whole life would be destroyed, I would think.

Emma

And he seems much more concerned about Margaret, his sister, and experiencing the consequences. That's something that Constance struggles to blow out the consequences for. Julian, she sees Julian as the marker of privilege. She's like, He's an Earl. I'm a woman. What could happen to him? It's like, Well, Margaret, this history and trauma, as I say, is with Stoke. And if Julian is ruined, Margaret will experience the brunt of it.

Chels

Julian also very early on brings up the fact that this is really fucking things up for the people at Charlotte Street. He can probably bounce back, but even when he's conceptualizing and he's thinking about all the other people that this will ripple out to. I think his ruination does have a floor. We don't quite know where everybody else's floor is if it exists.

Emma

Yeah.

Beth

And just referencing back to Margaret, she has a child, and so they've been keeping that secret for a long time. And if that secret gets out, Margaret will definitely be ruined. And they don't have enough money that they could bear that blow very easily, I think. So yeah, I think Julian's just concerned about other people in his life.

Emma

And the relation to his creditors, I think that comes up in Flowers from the Storm. And I think it's clear that, Peckham...He thinks about these 18th century economic realities too, where it's like, It doesn't matter if he has money, it matters if people will lend him money.

Beth

Yeah, that looks like he's doing well.

Emma

He has to look like he's doing well. And he's come up, on the come up when he's this member of Parliament, he's doing well, and all of a sudden, the rumors happen and the credit stops working. But then the moment he gets engaged to a woman with a big dowry, it's like if we spend money, it will look like you have money. I think there's that aspect too, that he could be ruined financially and not be able to keep his house. But then also if he was ruined, I think he was working. Charlotte Street allowed him to work in a way that people didn't realize that he was working. And I think maybe if things came out, maybe the result of that would be that he would be laboring in a more public way as he wouldn't have to keep his finances. The cat would be out of bag. So he would work publicly, maybe, is the implication?

Chels

Yeah, I think he should just turn to crime.

Emma

He does...sneaks into... Constance points out that he's like,

Chels

He should be a highwayman.

Emma

He's so good at sneaking into rooms.

Beth

Emma is a lawyer on the podcast is fighting not to say we don't endorse doing crimes.

Emma

You shouldn't do a crime! Julian, maybe he has a skill set. This is another aspect. I don't know if I have a point here, but it is something I thought about with this book. Then I also read another book recently where the hero was a sex worker that I don't think was as successful as this book, and I didn't like it. I won't name it because it wasn't very good. But I thought about what I was reading this book as well. I don't know if it's a frustration or not, but something I'm thinking about. Because I don't know how Peckham could have worked this into the book and had it resolved in the same way. The reality is if Julian were an 18th century sex worker, a male sex worker, he likely would have been servicing men, and that is not the implication in this book. He references his clients as being women. This is true of the 18th century and now. I don't know if Peckham would have written this differently now. She does write a bisexual hero in a later book, The Portrait of a Duchess. Though, of course, Julian being a sex worker who services men doesn't make him queer or bisexual.

Emma

But I do wonder if she would write it differently now that she has opened up to writing queer romances or queer characters more. I was just thinking about that in the history of 18th century sex work, because that's something where homosexual relationship or servicing men in a submissive role would have been more cause for ruination, I think more even so than sex work in general. I was just thinking about that when you were thinking about what does it mean to be ruined. Though I will say also the 18th century had more lax. I don't want to say lax because I think it's hard to talk about any othering or what would be criminalized for identity because the way that it would be applied would be like scattershot. Again, Julian's position as an Earl would be protecting him from that. It's like who gets criminalized is people who are marginalized always. 18th century relationship to queer relationship is very different than 19th century relationship to queer romance. Sometimes there were who were defending it and saying, This is actually good. I read one thing in a book about 18th century sex where someone was arguing that homosexuality is good because it prevents masturbation.

Emma

That's the worse thing. They had different notions. I don't want to collapse the 18th century and 19th century notions of queerness together and queerness as perverse or people are definitely arguing for decriminalization or encouraging it even in some ways.

Chels

There are some authors… I'm thinking particularly, SM LeViolette and some of her erotic historical romances, whenever she has a brothel, everybody works for everybody. It's not delineated by gender or sexuality in the way that I find a lot of historical romances, if they do that, they ended up doing that. I think that's something that I would be... I'm curious to ask people what their reasoning behind that would be if it's just like you don't think it's your place at that time to write that, or if you are uncomfortable, which I don't think Peckham is. I don't think I would say that at all. Peckham is a very bold writer, and she does really cool stuff. But I think if you're talking about Julian's ruination, I think that could add an extra layer of it, which could make the stakes seem higher because the stakes for Julian, I don't really think ever seemed that big. I don't think that necessarily detract from this book because I think the angst and the tension between the miscommunications of Constance and Julian take up so much of the air of the book that you don't really need those incredibly high stakes.

Chels

I think that there's a reader buy-in that Constance is going to fix this pretty early on. But I think I would be curious to see that version of a book. I would like... I would like more people to write stuff like that. I think if Julian was working for Men, if he was being hired for men, that wouldn't necessarily make him bisexual or gay. I think that's also something that people need to be comfortable with, is just sometimes things like this happen. I think that especially in historical romance, from what I've seen, I feel like there's widely maybe a little bit of a discomfort with not necessarily fluidity, which I wouldn't ascribe to Julian if he was doing that, because then again, he could just be hiring to do that. It could have nothing to do with sexuality. But I want to add a little bit of an openness because I think they're still like, It's gay, it's straight. And I'm like, Does-Doesn't matter. What does any of this mean? What does this any of this mean to people in these years? Or do they care about these terms? Or are you knowing?

Emma

I guess tying it together from the end of what does it mean to be ruined for a heroine? It usually means that no one will marry her. But for a hero, it means they won't be able to do business or political deals. Constance seems to be infinitely wealthy from her brother's finances and uses that money to help Julian develop his credit. They also are immediately vetted by two noble families. The Duke of Westmead, Constance's brother, and then they both have cousins who are married to each other who helped them with their social standing, who don't seem that concerned about the exposure of Julian's past ruining them. I guess my take away from this book, and I think this book puts into focus, is that ruination happens on a social level. We think about ruination as a binary of like, This person is ruined, this person is not. It's like, Well, if a heroine is a fallen woman, but someone's willing to marry her, then she's not ruined. If someone's willing to do a business deal with Julian, he's not ruined. It has to do with these very social things. It's not like someone's holding you in a court.

Emma

It's like, oh, you're out, you're in. It has all these social mechanics. I think ability to... I think the opera scene really gets at this, where it's like, Constance's ability to be steeled for that initial moment in public when they're going to have gossip around them by Julian, being her support system, gets them over the first hump. It's like if Constance had made a scene or let people see her crying, that would create more gossip and that would put them on a different path of what they need to right. But I think that ruination, we talk about it as like, someone is either ruined or is not. That doesn't seem to be really how things work socially for these people. Well, I feel.

Beth

Like each person you interact with would almost have to decide if they see you as ruined or not. I feel like that would just be crazy if you were the recipient of that, just always like, okay, is this person going to give me the cut? Are they going to treat me like garbage? Are they just going to actually say hi to me? That's, I think, part of the binary you're talking about. I feel like almost every person you interact with has to decide how badly they're going to treat you based on the social stigma. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Chels

Do you remember, Beth, that moment of Ruined By a Rake where Courtney gets the cut by someone and Julian has to look at another person and be like, That was crazy that that happened, right? In order to get him to buy into his side and be like, Oh, I can't cut Courtney because he just said that was a crazy thing to do.

Chels

But also I think that guy is like, what can I get more from the guy who did the cut or the guy who's getting cut? Do you know what I mean? And I think Courtney is going to be more helpful to me. So he's like, Yeah, that guy is crazy, actually. Yeah, you're totally right.

Emma

I think the way Constance talks about this in the book, so she's raised away from England. And so when she comes to England, she's like, I'm so weird. I make people uncomfortable because I have a weird accent. She's French, yeah. The way that she learns how to do it, she's very good at observing those macro social interactions of who's talking to who. How are they interacting with each other? I'm going to read the room. She talks about being able to read a room and know who to talk to and how to charm them. And... She's like, that is what's getting them through the scandal. Julian thinks of this as a... As Constance giving too much of herself. She's laying herself bare. And it's actually a skill. And then that's the thing that comes naturally to her. He finds it so endearing and charming, but he's like, Oh, this is going to be her ruin. Actually, that's how she's gotten through life up to this point because she's actually very uncomfortable with people looking down on her or judging her. She's going to sparkle them out of any social situation. So on Reread, I did notice that there were a lot of back and forth of things not quite working for this couple that I think sometimes gets to be the breaking point for some readers.

Emma

I could imagine someone reading this book and thinking, Just talk to each other. Just say what you feel because you just want someone to say how they're feeling. I think there may be two or three more rounds of this couple slipping past each other's meanings than in most romances. It goes on for a while. It isn't always miscommunication. Sometimes it's a real misalignment or attempted third-act breakup or someone being scared to make a leap of faith. But obviously, I love this book. One reason that I think it works because they're not always going back to square one with these miscommunications or a back and forth. But they also don't resolve everything in one fell swoop. They are always taking two steps forward, one step back.

Beth

Yeah, I like that Constance keeps messing up with Julian after she initially docs him because it comes from this fundamental misunderstanding that Julian's sexual desires are unnatural. And so she keeps stepping in it repeatedly, often after Julian feels like he can start to trust her again, or they have made some forward momentum in their relationship. Although Emma is right, they never go completely back to square one, but it's like they make some forward momentum, and then they hit a wall of like, Okay, well, we're not understanding each other on this new level. There's this one memorable conversation where Constance's like, You've got to trust me. And he says, You usually make things worse than she says this. Ah, yes, I suppose the situation is all my fault. I suppose I am responsible for your affliction. What affliction, Julian said? She smiled and battered her eyelashes. Your desire for unnatural acts, my lord, is that not what really ruined you? He felt like she had slapped him. To say such a thing, when he had already explained what Charlotte Street meant to him and what she'd risked by exposing it proved she had no business anywhere near the truth.

Beth

So he walks away explaining he doesn't have an affliction and then says, Don't call them unnatural until you try them.

Chels

Oh, man, this part frustrated me so much. It was like, Constance, how could you say that? And that's like this huge recurring conflict, right? Where Julian doesn't trust Constance. And that's what's impeding their relationship. But she, through her own ignorance, continuously gives him reasons not to trust her. So she initially betrayed him in this very painful way. And then she has this moment that just happened, this history of doing these things where she has these preconceived notions, or she does what she thinks is right over consulting with her friends and loved ones, which is something that she does in the first book of the series. She forces her brother to marry someone by exposing them via gossip. That's why she's so worried about her brother finding out what she's done because it'll be strike two for Constance. But even though Julian and Constance's relationship seems like it's at a really healthy place at points towards the end before the third act, that they love each other and that they're extremely compatible, he keeps returning to this place in his mind where he's questioning her loyalty to him. And where he like his ultimate question of that, where something happens, and he's like, Did Constance tell people this?

Chels

Did Constance betray my trust? He ultimately comes down to the wrong conclusion on that when he makes that accusation. And you can totally see why he would do that because she has this history. She continuously says things like this. And even though he really wants to be with her, there are parts of her where he's like, I want to marry her. I'm going to ask her to marry her. But he's like, I cannot marry someone that I don't trust. I think that was so believable the way that that was written because you could just feel for them. Constance doesn't mean any harm as little as that means in this scenario. But you can see a lot of that conversation that you just referenced, Beth. That's her being ignorant. She doesn't know what she's talking about. It's not necessarily her... She's trying to joke with him, but she's saying something really upsetting. She doesn't realize that.

Beth

She's so confident in her ignorance.

Chels

She's so worldly and French.

Emma

I think also with Constance, I think I got this more on the second read because the Harlan Stoke incident in Devon they referenced it a lot in the first act. It's like, Oh, there was this thing that happened in Devon that made Julian think less of Constance and Constance judged Julian or be was upset with Julian. They referenced the day that happened between them. It takes you a while to get to what the incident was, and it takes even longer for them to talk about it with each other. But I think it's like that ignorance that's like Constance being worldly. All she's heard is that Julian likes the Whipping House, and it's like she associates violence and sex together with Harlan Stoke, and it's like him pawing at her. She's like, That must be what it's like. I think it's like she makes these... She has no concept of... Even as she's thinking, Constance has these fantasies about Julian, and you're like, Very clearly, it makes sense that she would enjoy this relationship with him, and she doesn't have any language for it. But she's really taking aback that Julian, when he tells her, I only ever did this with people who wanted me to do it. She's like, Who would want that? Even as we've been hearing Constance narrate fantasies that make it very clear that she would be interested in kinky relationship, but she doesn't know what that is.

Emma

It's both ignorance, but also ignorance based on evidence that's narrow. She does feel like she has evidence for what a man who is interested in violence in the bedroom looks like, because Harlan Stoke wouldn't take no for an answer. I think that's also a meaning. We didn't talk about this with the first kiss. There's a part where Constance gets overwhelmed by Julian and she says stop, and he stops immediately. I think that really takes her aback as well. I'm like, Oh, this is the second time I've ever kissed anyone. The second time I've ever said stop. But now my stop is being listened to.

Beth

I think what's interesting, a thread from what you were saying is there's a common trope in historical romances where we have a very ignorant heroines about sex. They don't know a lot about it. Some of them are just like, their wedding night is a big surprise to them. But what is the consequence of keeping a group of people in ignorance or just not understanding certain things? Paired with this social engineering character, you can really do a lot of damage. I just find that so interesting that Peckham interprets this character in a new way. Because normally it's just a thing that the man likes. Like, Oh, she's only ever been with me. I'm teaching her everything. That's fine. It's an interesting dynamic, I guess.

Chels

Constance is like, I'm going to ruin your life.

Beth

Yeah, for sure. I like that.

Emma

It's not just... Julian is teaching Constance how to do things, but it's like, she obviously has these desires. There's a scene where she's fantasizing about him dressing her down, which is what he does. Then she's like, Oh, and it becomes sexual in her mind. She's like, Oh, he's going to dress me down. She thinks maybe he'll even put me over his knee. She's like, What does that mean? Why am I thinking these things? She has these interests, but she doesn't have any point of reference for it being consensual or point of... I think she gets embarrassed that she enjoys this because she just doesn't know that she's allowed to. We're just talking about Kink now. I want to talk about Kink in general with the series and also how it functions in this book. I referenced this at the beginning that I was hesitant to read the series or I was skeptical of how I would enjoy the series because of the conceit of it being around the Charlotte Street House. I was naively connecting it to 50 Shades of Gray just because that was my point of reference for kink and romance. In reading this series, I realized that it is a part of a lot of historical romances that I had read, even if it's not marketed that way for older books.

Emma

I want to talk about some older books that have kink elements to them that it seems like Peckham is referencing or is thinking of.

Chels

Yeah. There's the infamous spanking scene in Whitney, My Love, which Peckham was on the Whoa!mance podcast talking about Whitney, My Love. I think they did a whole episode on it. And she said that that book was partially an inspiration for Archer in The Duke I Tempted, which is the first book in the Charlotte Street series. And in that book, Archer enjoys being whipped and takes on a submissive role. So the spanking scene in Whitney is where Clayton hits Whitney with a writing crop. And he does this, he verbalizes it as a punishment. Like, she behaved like a child in his words, so she's going to get a childish punishment, which is being spanked with his writing crop. And this is actually something that was very, very controversially edited out of the 1999 hardback edition of Whitney, My Love, which is actually the most accessible edition. If you were going to check it out from the library, that's probably what you would get. It was something that the McNaught said in the late 90s made her queasy while reading it. So in the newer versions, Clayton stops just hitting Whitney. He tosses the crop away from her instead of hitting her with it.

Chels

But so McNaught is conceiving this as a punishment and an act of violence, but the way a lot of readers saw that original was not through the lens of abuse, but as a kink, particularly because Whitney is aroused after Clayton hits her. They become intimate after that. And then they establish a much more intense emotional connection after that incident. That moment in Whitney, My Love, is very controversial, but a lot of people it was very seminal in their kink journey. I think that's very interesting.

Beth

Yeah, that's actually really fascinating. I didn't know that. I'm not going to reference an older historical. I'm just talk about kink in general because I think Peckham ties the series together really well with a discussion of boundaries and kink. At the core of kink is a couple discussing what they do and don't want and incorporate that into their relationship. What has passed a boundary for one person might be okay for someone else. So pairing this with societal boundaries that Constance and Julian cross, I think it's a really revealing way to think about why we have certain social rules, what should or shouldn't be taboo, what's in it for a certain group to stigmatize certain behaviors? Like Chels talked about before with a quote from Raine Fisher-Quan and puritanical surveillance, there's this conversation. Henry is the editor of Saints and Satyers. He chases Julian down and he wants to have a conversation with him. He says, "I'm sure you're aware that my calling is to rid the city of Vice." Julian responds :A noble calling." Then Henry says, "I assume, as a peer of the realm, you share this desire." Of course, Julian said. "One sees the most appalling things in London, maiden is abducted and forced into prostitution, predation upon children, procurers who trade in despondence and disease, I hope you're directing your efforts toward the most vulnerable among us."

Beth

And then Julian thinks "It would be a nobler use of his efforts than shaming whores and mollies in his pages." That's definitely a strong theme throughout all three books of who is getting stigmatized? What are the ramifications for engaging in these stigmatized behaviors? And it trickles down to the personal as well. In the first book, Archer really struggles to tell Poppy his desires, I think. And that is one of the defining features of that book. And then if you want to read The Lord I left. Henry is actually the main.

Emma

It's so good. I know.

Beth

I was like, reading this book again after having read all three, I'm just like, Oh, baby Henry. He has no idea what he's getting himself into.

Chels

He's going to get his world rocked in the next book.

Beth

I know. Yeah, I have such a soft spot for Henry, but he's not an antagonist, but he's definitely someone who could potentially harm Julian. So he's wary of him because he has this... He works for the, I don't know what to call it, Saints and Satyers is a gossip blog. It's like a religious mag. Religious?

Emma

Yeah, like a propaganda - Yeah. lobbying thing.

Beth

That would make sense to you, right? If it was a religious one because he's a vicar, right? Yeah.

Chels

I see Henry is on par with Constance in a lot of ways. They're both easily swayed by their ignorance, and they don't necessarily have bad intentions. And other people, for the most part in this book, approach them like the way that Julian approaches Henry is like, even though Henry has the power to destroy him, he still sees that Henry isn't really out to get him.

Beth

Yeah, he's not like malicious, I would say, even in this book.

Chels

Yeah. I think that Constance and Henry have a whole lot in common in that one very specific way. One thing in common, I guess I would say. Yeah.

Beth

Maybe they're both afraid of their own desires. If you see it in yourself and you look in the world and you say like, Oh, this is stigmatized and bad. Therefore, I'm bad if I have this desire. I understand why they're react the way they do.

Chels

Yeah, I think.

Emma

This gets to the private and public again. It's like Henry thinks that in order to prevent the public rot that he sees in London, all the things that Julian says he should be focusing on, like predations on children, you have to deal with these private consensual acts. That's the source. Julian, in the more evolved notion, sees them as separate things. It's that the things that are happening between two consenting adults exist only in that relationship and don't affect the predation and the economy that's happening that's taking advantage of people who don't want to be in those relationships or can't consent to relationships. And so Henry and Constance see these as connected. And Julian is showing both of them that they could be separated. And also when you have that openness in a private relationship, you are going to be able to take those leaps of faith and be trusted, which is what Constance is always struggling with. Now we're going to talk about my favorite thing with this book. I'm not a big trope person. I don't like describing books in this way. I don't like receiving recommendations based on tropes. I just don't think it's super useful for me because I feel like it doesn't lead me to reading books that I enjoy because I always care more about how it's done than the actual trope.

Emma

But I will say the exception is, enemies to lovers, but he's been secretly in love with her the whole time. I'm weak for this plot. I usually think the conflict there comes from the heroine thinking that the hero is looking down on her when actually he's keeping distance for self-preservation. So two of my favorites that do this are Scandal in Spring by Lisa Kleypas and Ruined by Rumor by Alyssa Everett, which we recently read. That's also happening in this book, but layered on top of that is a complicating trope that I call Emma Woodhouse experiences a consequence, which I also love. These are my favorite types of heroines when a woman who is so worldly and indulged and self-centered suddenly meets the limits of that worldview, usually because she realizes that some people's worlds are made up of more danger, be it economic or bodily, than her own. Peckham said on the Romance at a Glance podcast that she likes to mine tropes for both the romantic and nightmare-ish qualities, and then map that duality onto a type of person who can bring out both the darkness and the light of that trope. Julian has been in love with Constance for a long time, but when she hurts him, he has to push past his first impulse to indulge her because of his duty to his family and his reputation.

Emma

I want to talk about Constance and her bad act, but I also want to talk about how Peckham doesn't let this just be Constance laying prostrate and atoning the whole book. Julian also has to do work.

Chels

Yeah, I think something that takes a good romance into great romance territory is exploring how there are degrees of ways which we can harm each other. And the biggest, most horrible action isn't the only one that needs to be worked through. So Constance exposing Julian is devastating. And when I read this book for the first time, I was very concerned that Peckham wouldn't be able to get me to root for her or understand why she would do something so cruel. Those reasons don't justify her actions, but it does clarify them to the reader and ultimately to Julian. So Julian thought he was behaving properly with Constance, that he was helping her with his rebukes, but he was hurting her feelings and making her feel small. This is why he thought they were friends, but she definitely didn't see him that way. So Constance isn't the only one who notices this. Other characters perceive Julian's disapproval of Constance. He's so successful at hiding his attraction to her that it starts to look like disdain. So the resolution of these conflicts together reminded me of Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas. So in that book, Leo, the hero, does this big, bad act in the book.

Chels

He cheats on Bryony. But if Bryony wants to be in a relationship with Leo again, she has to want to reconcile. She has to trust him or else I'll continue on in the cycle of miscommunication and hurt feelings. So similarly, Julian needs to trust Constance. He needs to believe that they've reached a point where they knew each other well enough and care about each other enough that they won't repeat past mistakes.

Beth

I'm going to springboard here off what you said. I think Peckham is obviously exploring intention versus impact. So yes, Julian corrects Constance frequently, but his intention is to protect her from society censure because if she says the wrong thing or acts in a certain way, he doesn't want her to be exposed. Julian applies this to himself. His social persona is aggressively bland on purpose. He's got people to protect, secrets to keep, his family secrets to keep. So he makes sure everything he does is of a reproach. So he's definitely not a hypocrite. Yet in his pursuit of socially trying to protect Constance, like Chelly. She sees him more as just finding fault with everything she does. So it's fair that she doesn't see him as a friend. And this situation I love in a book where I see both character sides and don't really fault either for how they approached it. As a result of this, though, Julian does have to make it clear what his true feelings are repeatedly. Constance does have reason to distrust his declarations of strong emotions when she compares that to their history together.

Emma

Yeah, this is something I feel like unites a lot of the books that we love is that it can't happen once. There's the moment where Julian goes, he sneaks into her bedroom and he's like, What if I do want to marry you? And she's like, I wouldn't marry if it wasn't for love. He's like, What if I do love you? I do love you. Constance just totally brushes it aside. It's meaningless to her in the declaration. I think the first time I read it, I thought, Oh, this is going to be the... They're going to get together and then there's going to be a third act breakup after this. But in that moment, they don't... There's no solution there either. That's when she ends up suggesting that they stop faking it. But they're still not together in any way. They're not expecting themselves to get married. But it can't just happen once. Julian can't just declare... He's been building for eight years, he thinks, If I just can tell Constance how I feel, that will be the solution, and then we'll get it over with. But for eight years, he's been dressing her down. He's been pointing out all of her faults.

Emma

And so she doesn't really care when he says, I love you because he hasn't been acting like it, so it's meaningless to her. Constance also thinks a lot about what does it mean for someone to love her and also what does it mean for her to love someone. She's been waiting for someone to fall in love with her. And then her big realization is not that Julian's in love with her, it's that she's in love with him, and it doesn't matter. Her affection and love for him doesn't change what he thinks of her. She just... She just loves him. And so they both have to go through this thing where the moment that they're waiting for is not the moment that they need in order to resolve the conflict. It has to be... I mean, Constance says love is a system of behaviors. It has to be all these things put together. It has to come together on multiple vectors in order for it to work.

Beth

Yeah. I have to think of all the times Julian comes to the house super late and being like, Just let me talk to Constance. Leave things the way I wanted it to be left.

Emma

I also love the part where the Duke of Westmead is like, Yeah, she's a trial. And he's like, No, that's not what I mean.

Beth

Yeah. I do like that he has her back in private, though, like that moment. It's like, You can't say that.

Emma

Once he's allowed to dote on her, he becomes very defensive of people thinking like Constance is silly or Constance is annoying. But it's like he can't. He doesn't really think. He could have been doing that the whole time.

Beth

Oh, I know.

Chels

There was this point where they're like, Okay, well, we're going to act in private the way that we are in public. We're going to pretend that we're in love all the time, 24-7. And then Julian is just like, This feels so good. I get to touch you whenever I want. I get to say nice things. I'm like, Nobody was stopping you. No one was stopping you.

Emma

From being nice. But I also love that Constance's reaction to that is the total opposite. She moves totally inward. She's now experiencing like, she's in love with him and she's like, This is terrible. Julian's known this whole time that he's in love with her and they can't be together. That is the release valve for her to realize that she's in love with him. And now everything is terrible because they're not going to be together. And so while he views the nine days as this respite, it's what causes her to realize that like, Oh, I want to be with him and we can't be together. So while he becomes glowing and in love, and it's Constance. Everyone's like, Constance, do you want to break up with him? And she's like, no, actually, I don't. That's what's so terrible.

Beth

I feel like maybe Julian has like, because we've been talking about it. You could have been doing this the whole time, Julian. I don't know if pride is too strong of a word, but because Constance is the one with the money, and he is very aware of the fact that he lost a bunch of money on a bad investment with these mines. So he thinks in his mind, I need to hit these steps before I'm good enough for Constance, which I just find interesting. I wish he had... I don't know. We wouldn't have a book if he hadn't made that realization earlier. But the fact that he doesn't make that realization, I think, is interesting.

Emma

That's something Constance has to grapple with, too, because the day in Devon, when she's trying to flirt with him, he's holding back. And he's even saying he's asking people, he's like, Well, when could you propose to someone who's just come out into the season? How long should I wait? He's very besotted with her immediately. But I guess in her mind, she's like, I have money. Why wouldn't he propose? She doesn't realize that he's going through things and he has weights on him that she can't decentralize, like the stress of his father dying and taking on the Earldom. Her father is a reprobate who ruined their childhood, so she doesn't have any connection to her parents. His father dies right before the Rosebush kiss, the first kiss where she launches herself at him. He even says, She thought that I was walking out there contemplating my boringness, but actually, I was thinking about my debts. So both these times when they meet, he's going through the worst times in his financial and Earldom life. And she doesn't have any... She just can't conceptualize that until he tells her those things, but also she doesn't have the empathy for those situations as a young teen to relate to him.

Chels

I think part of that is coming from the whole marriage art scenario situation where it's like if you're an aristocrat and you come to that, the point where you get married is where you're bringing all your stuff. There isn't necessarily an idea of you grow beyond that. Julian is going to extend his wealth afterwards. He has to be ready. He has to be... The marriage is an early but also final step, which is interesting.

Emma

This also reminds me of Not Quite a Husband because that's Leo's mindset. He's in love with Bryony and he thinks like, Oh, in a couple of years, I'll be ready to get married. But Bryony, he forces the proposal earlier. And so then they're dealing with the fallout of what happens if... It's like if Julian had been forced to propose to Constance at the house party that they're at, then we get a Not Quite a Husband situation where the man's not ready to be married, but doesn't want to give up someone that he's in love with.

Chels

Either way, problems.

Beth

I know, right? We love problems.

Emma

That is the nature of the plot. There will be problems.

Emma

So some of the last two topics I wanted to talk about were two genre conventions that Peckham explores and in different ways and just how they function in this book. So first, I want to talk about the Georgian setting, because I don't think we've talked about a Georgian book in a standalone episode before. So this book is set in 1754. I think we could talk about the Georgian stakes and morality being different from Regency or Victorian. I read this that the Regency is part of the Georgian period, but actually the Regency is George III's period. It becomes more and more conservative from the top down. George III was the first king in 200 years who didn't have a mistress who lived in his house. This is a big part of the changing morality of sex in the later Georgian period and into the Regency. Also the Regency, you think about becoming more conservative to deal with the fact that they're in a Regency and that George III is not able to rule. I think this primarily comes up in the way that Constance has more freedom and she's uninterested in marrying just anyone.

Emma

Julian's concern is more about people finding out that he does work rather than sex work. It'd be hard not to collapse the moralities of the "back then" period together, but I think it's important to think of the Georgian time as less staid than the Victorian period. People were less conservative religiously. There's a sudden new upward ability to people between the lower classes and middle classes. London is beginning to boom before this crackdown on urbanity that comes in the Victorian period. My reaction whenever people say this "isn't what it was like," especially during the Georgian period, is to point out that Fanny Hill was published in 1748, which features a scene of mutual flaggelation. I just wanted to talk about this period and how it functions in this book.

Beth

I don't have anything interesting to say after you gave such a good history lesson. I was mostly just like, He wore a wig, right?

Emma

He did.

Chels

I wish he wore it longer.

Beth

I know. I think it'd be a nice - I think it'd be like a nice wig. Yeah, like a nice way to... What you've talked before about Elizabeth Hoyt. It's like in.

Emma

The love scenes. Can we just wear a wig the whole time? Yeah. My first Georgian book was Elizabeth Hoyt book. I think it was Notorious Pleasures. And I didn't realize what was going on. I didn't realize it was Jordan. I didn't look at the years until a sex scene and the hero takes off his wig, which was very surprising. I was like, He was wearing a wig this whole book??? It's like a third of the way through the book. I was like, I have been not picturing somewhat a man in a wig. I know I've righted my wrongs. I know I like reading Georgian books with a wig, but it did send me the first time someone takes off their wig during sex.

Chels

The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian is a Georgian, and something that I think about all the time because it makes me laugh so much is that Kit is like a coffee shop owner and he hates aristocrats and Percy is the son of a duke and a total fucking brat. And like, Kid doesn't want to love Percy, but he loves Percy. And he's just constantly berate himself. He's like, I can't fucking believe I like his wig. And he's just so mad. He's like, He's talking to his penis, like don't stand down. He's just not attractive. And it just makes me laugh all the time. I don't know. I feel like this is an unpopular opinion. I feel like other people are like, Oh, we don't like that. I'm like, I like it. I like it a lot.

Emma

I just watched Barry Lyndon for the first time. And I was like, I could do more of this. I could do more of this, like 1750s, 1760s, big dresses, big hair. It makes sense. Also, there's something sexy about big clothes, big clothes that come off. You're taking off an empire waist dress? That's nothing. Right.

Beth

That comes up with the.

Chels

Constance a lot too. They're like, I don't know if she was- She's so big. Her dress is several size that times as hard. Then there's a point where she's looking at her in her night room and she's like, I didn't realize she was so small because her clothes are just taking up an entire room. I wish more historical authors that are currently writing would do Georgian because I love that so much. I think in my opinion, it's a lot more fascinating than when you get into some Regency and Victorians where the stakes in those settings are solely tied to the marriage mart within those moralities that they have during those eras. I think even an amped up version of it, if I'm being honest. I think the way that people write Regency and Victorian is a little bit more conservative than they would actually be. And I was thinking about this, too, because there's book, The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton by Miranda Nevel, and that is a Regency. And the part of the plot is that the hero of that book collects erotic novels. He's like a dandy in that book and he collects erotic novels.

Chels

And so in the novel Celia Seaton, the heroine, she reads an all of the life erotic story called The Genuine and Remarkable Amours of the celebrated author, Peter Ereton. And this is a real book that was published in 1796. And she uses this book and reads chapters of it throughout the book as her own sex ed. And it's like an element that goes unacknowledged, I think, in a lot of historical because of the way that we're like, Oh, this is how society was. People didn't lose interest and things like that. People did not have access to things like that. These are still happening. There's never a period of time when people were not interested in this outside of their marriage or their love life. Their one to one love life.

Emma

The other thing I want to talk about is a genre convention that I think Peckham is not in, but is talking to, is the erotic element. I've seen this book referenced as erotica in a few different places. Initially I thought it was like, Is this erotica? I hadn't read it in a year, and I just haven't read that much historical erotica. Then I read it and I was like, No, it's definitely structured like a romance. But I think some people label it as erotica, I think because of the kink element to it. I think there's some othering that goes on with the way that the sex is not normal in the way that people expect in historical romance. But Chels is going to talk to us a little bit about erotica and historical erotica and that history. Yeah.

Chels

So erotica is not in the same vein as romance. Erotica has different conventions. I think one of them is... You don't need an HEA for erotica. I think it's a big difference. But there is a subgenre called erotic historical romance. And so the author, Thea Devine, who wrote historical romance credits the term from the critic Kathy Robbins from The Romantic Times. You also might have heard her name come up a few times on this podcast. She's also the same critic that Mary Jo Putney credits for delineating dark romance for light romance, which is where we get dark romance from now. Apparently, Robin referred to Devine's 1993 novel Beyond Desire, which has an extremely lengthy sex scene. I saw some reviews say that it's 100 pages. I have not verified that, but that's insane.

Emma

That's a lot!

Chels

No, I haven't read that one. I've read another of Thea Devine's books. And when I was reading it, I was like, I don't understand why this is erotic historical romance. And then I got to page 294, and I remember that page. And I was like, I see what you're talking about. Okay.

Emma

It puts them all together.

Chels

Yeah, I'm like, Oh, okay. But this book, Beyond Desire in 1993, she called it erotic historical romance. And then the term took off and became a marketing term, which I think is how we get a lot of subgenres, is when they enter that marketing lexicon. So Devine noted on the show, Chatting with Chase, that when the term was popularized, Kensington changed the name of an anthology she was part of. It was initially called Captivated, but it was later changed in the next edition to Captivated: Tale of Erotic Romance. The other authors in that anthology are Susan Johnson, Bertrice Small, and Robin Schoen. Schoen's work is also frequently tagged as erotic historical romance. And as for genre definitions, it's not just characterized by kink or length of sex scenes. An erotic historical romance has to have a character's sexual journey be its own plot point. Not quite is equal to the romance, but it has to be lady. The Lady's Tutor by Robin Schoen is I think a good example of that. I think that was a 1999 erotic historical romance, and it's about the heroine getting sex lessons from her love interest. So out of all of the Charlotte Street books, I think The Earl I Ruined is the easiest to categorize as erotic historical romance because of how Constance comes into her own and learning that she loves kink.

Chels

Part of it is her finding out about herself. I don't think it's quite as clear cut as some of these other examples that I think, but I would feel comfortable, honestly, as categorizing as such. It's interesting to think about. But yeah, it feels a lot like an irregular historical romance because it basically is. There's not really that much of a difference.

Beth

There's a common trope, just like in historical romance, where typically the male main character will get the female main character sex lessons. So if you have that trope, we qualify that as erotic? Because I think of Joanna Shupe. She had a book where it was like that. But when I was reading it, I wasn't like, Oh, yes, this is erotic. But I don't know if you have the sexual journey centered like that.

Chels

Yeah, I think it could be. But I think this is a fun thing about genre, where you can talk about it and find your own... Yeah, I don't know anybody, nobody really owns the definition of this. But if I'm thinking about the Shup where she's like... The one where she's the cook.

Beth

Yeah, that's the one I was thinking of. I just can't remember the name. Yeah.

Beth

So for me, I don't think I would necessarily categorize that as eroticist, historical romance, even though she is getting sex lessons in that because I think that is mainly just to get them alone together and a little bit less about her journey. It's dicey, though. I think other.

Beth

People might disagree with me. It's like a launching point. I literally posed the question because I was like, Could we categorize it like this? And it probably even depends on the book. But I think for that Joanna Shupe talked about, yeah, it's definitely like, how am I going to get these characters alone together with this very overbearing mother in the way.

Chels

Yeah. And why would she want to do that if he's not the one that she wants to marry? And so that's the way that Shupe. And I don't think I've read everything that... I've definitely not read everything that Shype has written, but I do think that from what I know of her, I do think there are definitely books of hers that I think would very clearly fall into erotic historical romance.

Beth

Interesting. I do.

Emma

Think the way that you described, I think The Lord I Left could be because with Harry Evesham, he has to realize that he enjoys sex and that sex is not bad. It's also so it is very independent from his relationship with the heroine whose name escapes me in this moment. Alice? It's Alice, yeah.

Beth

Alice, yeah.

Emma

Alice, because they're not thinking... She's prodding him sexually much more than she is romantically for a lot of the book. She just wants him to break and be okay with sex, and she's so interested in him being so buttoned up. That's a separate enterprise for her that the falling in love part, which is also happening along the way. Anything? Do we miss anything that anyone was dying to say about this book?

Chels

I just want to talk about wigs again.

Beth

One last here.

Emma

We're pro-wigs. Yeah, pro-wigs and anti-Tory.

Beth

This is true. Thank you.

Emma

So much for listening to Reformed Rakes. If you enjoy the podcast, you can find bonus content on our Patreon at Patreon.com/reformedrakes. You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram for updates. The username for both is @reformedrakes. Please rate and review. It helps a lot. Thank you again and we'll see you next time.