Fans of Eloisa James & Julia Quinn discussion

I have a particular fondness for people who manage to create a real feel for the language and behavior and customs of the period. Mary Balogh is one such author. Here is another. (I am also a sucker for books done well in the first person—there are so few.)

“Heroine…”
“Yes?”
“I’ve something to ask you. Will you hear me out?”
I glanced up. A painful frown knit his brows. “Of course.”
He looked away. “Your Aunt Whitby is a tactless old witch, but she’s as shrewd as she can hold together. I wish you’d give her suggestion of this spring some thought.”
“What?” My heart began to bang away in my throat like a trip-hammer.
He turned back to me, his eyes grave. “You would do me great honour if you would marry me.”
I made a strangled noise. I don’t think he heard. He had turned away and begun to walk on alon the wet, leaf-strewn path. I commanded my paralysed limbs to move.
“I’m aware of the drawbacks marrying any one will present you,” he was saying as I regained his side. “At least, I think I am. And I know you’ve been mourning Bevis. When I saw how calmly you dealt with him in London I ventured to hope…”
“Hero…”
“I meant to say something at Wharton’s wedding, but I hadn’t the courage to press the matter then. I won’t now, God knows. But I’d like you to think about it.”
I might make my feet move but my tongue seemed beyond my command.
He had stopped again and was looking at me now, searchingly, with the same slight frown I had seen so many times when something troubled him. “There would be some advantage to you.”
I returned his stare like a mesmerized bird.
“You’d have a sure position in the world, and I wouldn’t wish to interfere with your work. Your sisters—Lady Anne and Lady Kinnaird, I mean—couldn’t very well harass you if you were Countess of C.____, and even Lady Whitby would be pleased—when she forgives me my latest Jacobin excesses.” A flicker of humour lit his eyes for a moment. “Besides,” he added, as matter-of-fact as if he were discussing the price of a quarter loaf, “I love you very much.”
“Hero…” I seemed unable to say anything else.
He smiled a little. “If that’s an inducement.”
“Hero.” I took hold of myself and contrived to say, “Yes, I’ll marry you,” though rather indistinctly.
His eyes widened.
“Yes,” I said very clearly. “Yes. Please.”
We stared at each other.
After a long moment, frowning slightly, he reached out and tilted my chin up. I thought he meant to say something else, but he bent and kissed me with grave deliberation on the mouth. My paralysis vanished. My kiss may have been inexpert, but it made up in enthusiasm what it lacked in practice.
I have no idea how long we stood there scandalizing the Brecon rabbits. When we finally disentwined, my bonnet had tipped over one ear and I gasped for breath in an unladylike fashion. Hero was rather breathless himself.
A flush tinged his cheekbones and his eyes were bright, partly with amusement. “Heroine, my fraudulent dove, I perceive I’ve been unnecessarily diffident. Shall we run for the border?”
*****
We sat on one of Papa’s marble benches, for we had reached the margin of the lake, and there followed another satisfactory interlude.
I came up for air again. “Where’s my bonnet?”
“Mmmm? Safe as houses. I chucked it beneath a bush.”
“Wretch!” I considered the trouble Anne had taken to see that I bought that bonnet and I fear I snickered.
“You shouldn’t hide your hair,” he said seriously.
“Do you like it?”
“The bonnet?”
“My hair! I feel dreadful, hero.”
He straightened, alarmed. “Good god, and I was flattering myself that you were feeling everything appropriate to the occasion.”
“I’ll be an object of loathing among all the matchmaking mamas. You must know you’re a Prime Catch.”
If I had hoped to disconcert him I failed. He chuckled. “Yes, and very gratifying it is, too, considering I spent my salad years being warned off by stern papas.”
“Poor hero. How I wish we’d met then.”
“No, you don’t. My feet were too large and my ears turned red whenever I was embarrassed, which was most of the time.”
“Your ears still turn red—bright red.”
“But the rest of me has caught up with my feet,” he replied, composed. “I prefer a mature and elevating attachment to the idiocies of calf love. Far more dignified, don’t you think?” He kissed my hair. Thence followed another interlude—elevated, of course.

Oh, what a great choice, Deb--a wonderful writer whom I had almost forgotten! Reading this puzzler sent me in search of a digital version, and I ended up buying the series plus one more, an old favorite. Thanks.

I have a guess as to the author but it's been YEARS since I read her last. I think she's been digitizing her works recently, so I'll seek her out too. If, that is, this is who I think it is.

I think I have read this but I'm not positive?

I think I know the author but I don't know the book. I'll be curious to see the answer.

It's Lady Elizabeth's Comet by Sheila Simonson.