By My Heart Betrayed

By My Heart Betrayed (1991) by Olga Bicos – Dell – Good Condition

Esmeralda MacClure has lost her family estate, been reduced to earning her living as a seamstress and concluded that the only practical solution is to find herself a rich gentleman.

Not necessarily to love.

That would be far too straightforward.

In By My Heart Betrayed, Olga Bicos delivers a gloriously old-school historical romance built around inheritance, deception, pride, seduction and the dangerous assumption that one can involve the human heart in a financial strategy without it eventually demanding a meeting of its own.

Esmeralda has been betrayed by her cousin and deprived of the estate she believes should rightfully be hers. With respectable options proving inconveniently limited, she decides to make use of the asset still entirely under her control: herself.

The plan is simple enough.

Find a wealthy man.

Charm him.

Secure the means to reclaim what has been taken from her.

Avoid inconvenient emotional involvement.

History suggests that Step Four is where these arrangements generally encounter difficulties.

Enter Keane Marshall, a rich, arrogant and decidedly experienced gentleman who notices what Esmeralda is attempting and decides that exposing a beautiful fortune hunter might provide excellent entertainment. He intends to turn the tables, seduce her and prove that he understands exactly what sort of woman she is.

This is another excellent plan.

It also goes wrong.

What follows is the familiar and extremely dependable machinery of historical romance: two determined people convinced that they are manipulating each other while the reader waits patiently for both of them to notice that something considerably less manageable has begun happening.

Esmeralda is not presented as a helpless maiden awaiting rescue. She has an objective, a grievance and enough determination to pursue both, even if doing so requires entering territory where money, attraction and social position become unpleasantly tangled.

Keane, meanwhile, starts from the comfortable position of a man who thinks he understands the game.

This should immediately worry him.

Men in historical romances who believe they understand the game are generally about three chapters away from discovering that they have become the game.

The tension lies precisely in that collision. Esmeralda needs wealth but does not want to be owned by it. Keane thinks he can expose her motives without becoming vulnerable himself. Each regards the other with suspicion while being inconveniently attracted to exactly the person they have decided not to trust.

It is therefore romance conducted in the traditional manner: with considerable passion and almost no sensible communication.

Published by Dell in 1991, By My Heart Betrayed belongs squarely to the grand era of mass-market historical romance when titles were dramatic, emotions were enormous and nobody merely “liked” somebody when they could instead experience an all-consuming passion capable of overturning several generations of social expectations.

Subtle?

Occasionally.

Restrained?

That rather depends what you mean by restrained.

The book runs to the sort of romantic formula that knows precisely what its audience came for and sees no compelling reason to apologise. There is a beautiful but vulnerable heroine, a wealthy and dangerously confident hero, a battle of wills and the inevitable discovery that seduction becomes considerably more complicated when both parties begin developing actual feelings.

The original publication description is admirably direct about Esmeralda’s predicament: she wants her estate back, she needs money to accomplish it and Keane intends to expose her as a fortune hunter. The resulting contest naturally produces rather more than either of them bargained for.

This copy is in Good condition, meaning it has survived more than three decades of romantic upheaval without having its own heart noticeably betrayed.

ISBN 0440207223.

Ideal for readers of vintage historical romance, collectors of 1980s and 1990s romantic fiction, admirers of scheming heiresses, arrogant gentlemen, disputed inheritances and stories in which two intelligent adults could probably resolve everything through one calm conversation but fortunately choose not to.

Also suitable for anyone who enjoys a romance where the heroine begins by hunting a fortune and ends up discovering that money may not be the most troublesome thing she acquires.

Sold by Crappy Old Books — where hearts may be betrayed, estates may be stolen, gentlemen may be dangerously rich, and all fortune hunters are expected to pay postage like everybody else.

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