Ilze

This book is from the old Signet Regency romance line, although it is not strictly speaking a Regency romance at all. The story takes place in an old castle in Scotland that had been abandoned when the previous laird dies and his only son is believed killed in battle in the Peninsular War. The new laird, Duncan, did not die in battle, but had been betrayed by an Englishman, then captured and held by the French. After he escapes from the French prison, he and his faithful Cockney valet/batman make their way back to the family castle and find the heroine, Kate, living there with her mute daughter and her maid-of-all-work Daisy. It turns out that the same Englishman who betrayed Duncan to the French is responsible for the daughter's loss of speech and Kate's having to live in hiding in Duncan's castle. The story is somewhat convoluted and has too many pat coincidences to give it more than 3 stars. The use of Cockney accents for the speech of the English servants of Kate and Duncan and Scots accents for the Scottish villagers is a bit distracting and slows the reader down until one figures out what is being said, but does add to the atmosphere of the book.

The book's cover illustration is a bit silly because the hero actually has only one eye, having lost the other when he was betrayed and ambushed, and wears an eyepatch. In the scene illustrated on the cover, he has also not shaved for about a month and has a full growth of beard, as well as a scar from his jaw up to his missing eye! Also, in the book the couple are dancing some sort of Scottish reel, not waltzing.