Unlacing Lady Thea by Louise Allen: A vacation like no other… with Napoleon in exile on Elba, Rhys Denham, Earl of Palgrave, has decided to go on the Grand Tour, and have a year-long holiday. After this last chance to sow his wild oats, he has decided that he will come back to England, find a wife and settle down. The night before he is depart, he is drinking deeply, apprehensive about his trip. Then, a visitor is announced, and it’s none other than his old childhood friend Lady Althea (Thea) Curtiss, dressed unconvincingly as a boy, and with a wild tale to tell. She wants Rhys to take her to the continent with him, in order to get to Lady 
Hughson, their godmother, who is currently in Venice. She needs her godmother’s permission to gain control of her fortune, because her father, after three failed seasons in London, is ready to arrange a loveless marriage for her. Thea is forthright, intelligent, and “average” in looks, and refuses to marry without love. Rhys, after being reminded of a childhood debt to her, reluctantly agrees to take her with him, despite the huge potential for scandal.
“I must be mad.” She held her breath as he took a long swallow of brandy, his Adam’s apple moving in the muscled column of his throat. “I’ll take you. But you had better behave, brat, or you’ll be home on the first boat home.”
It had been a while since Rhys and Thea were together, the last time being six years earlier when he was jilted at the altar by his fiancée and his best friend. Since then, he has grown bigger and stronger, and Thea finds him irresistible, but worries that he only sees her as a friend. Rhys, on his part, has a hard to recalling that she’s a grown woman of twenty-two, and not a debutante. As they travel along, however, first across England to Dover, then across the channel and then down France towards Italy, he gradually realizes that she is not only grown up, but a very attractive, very alluring woman. When a handsome English reverend, Giles Benton, who is rescued from a carriage accident in Northern France, joins them on their journey south, he feels that this is the perfect person for her, and encourages Benton in his pursuit of Thea. Of course, misunderstanding and potentially compromising circumstances ensue on this lively and fun-filled trip as it winds its way to happy and satisfying conclusion.
This book is very well titled. Unlacing Lady Thea can be a metaphor of how both Thea and Rhys “let go” of mental baggage in their journey south. Rhys gradually loses his angst about his jilted wedding. Thea stops believing in the notion that she is an unattractive and plain woman who men only pursue due to the wealth of her dowry. They both become stronger and freer people as their trip goes along.
I enjoyed this book. Rhys and Thea are great characters, the sort that everyone but themselves see as perfect for each other, and of course, much time as to be spent denying this perfection. Rhy’s valet Hodge and Thea’s maid Polly are lovely secondary characters, and their carefree and easy romance is a nice foil for Rhys’s and Thea’s somewhat tortured one. I have to add that I love the carriages that are in this novel. I had never before read a novel where the carriages were able to be made into beds for sleeping while traveling, which is a great idea, but also becomes a vital plot point.
If you are looking for a light-hearted character-driven novel I recommend this one for you!
Book Info:
Publication: March 18th 2014 by Harlequin
A journey into pleasure…
The night before dissolute Lord Denham is about to embark on his grand tour, he meets an unexpected complication. In boy’s clothes that barely conceal her delectable curves, his childhood friend Lady Althea Curtiss—desperate to escape an arranged marriage—arrives, demanding free passage!
Rhys accepts his unlikely traveling companion with great reluctance—the scandal is sure to blow up in his face—until he finds there is far more intimate territory Lady Thea is curious to explore. Soon he realizes that he is in danger of awakening not only Thea’s sensuality, but also his own long-buried heart….
