What the Duke Desires by Sabrina Jeffries

Narrated by Corrie James

What the Duke Desires is the first in a new series of books, The Duke’s Men, by Sabrina Jeffries, and I certainly plan to read/listen to the others in the series on the strength of this one.

Lisette Bonnaud and her brother, Tristan, are the illegitimate children of Viscount Rathmore and his French-born mistress, a former actress, who lives with her children in Yorkshire. When their father dies, leaving them nothing, the new viscount, George, who has long hated his father’s “other” family, wastes no time in evicting them from their home but not before Tristan, young and hot-headed, has stolen George’s favorite horse and sold it in order to provide some immediate funds to support his family.

Fortunately for Tristan and Lisette, their other half-brother, Dominic Manton, has always been their friend and he helps Tristan to leave the country, knowing that George will take great pleasure in having him arrested and hanged for thievery. (Horse stealing was a hanging offence at the time the story is set).

By the end of this prologue I was already impressed by Corrie James’ characterization. The two women and three men were all very clearly defined and there was never any confusion as to who was speaking. George sounded suitably nasty and I really liked the way she voiced Dom, who sounded exactly like the very young man he was. There was a very easy-going quality to his voice that made him immediately endearing, and I’ll definitely be looking forward to listening to his story when it appears.

Several years later, we meet Dominic and Lisette in London. Estranged from his brother because of his defense of his half-siblings, Dom has to make his own way in the world and is running a successful investigation agency. He is about to depart London to work on a case in Edinburgh, leaving Lisette to run the office.

Not long after he leaves, Lisette receives an unexpected visitor in the form of Maximilian Cale, the Duke of Lyons. He tells her that he has received a communication from Tristan regarding an old family tragedy – the kidnap and subsequent death of his elder brother and is insistent that Lisette tells him immediately where he can find Tristan.

Lyons is haughty and overbearing, and I thought Corrie James captured those qualities perfectly in her portrayal. She has a naturally deep voice, which helps when voicing male characters, but she does more than just use a lower pitch; she gives her voice a hard, clipped edge, especially when Lyons is being, as Lisette calls it, “dukely”.

Lisette is astonished at Lyons’ request. She had no idea Tristan was in England as he still has a warrant out for his arrest and Lyons’ suspicious, dismissive manner immediately gets her hackles rising. The air fairly crackles with antagonism until Lyons realizes that trying to bully answers out of the young Frenchwoman will get him nowhere and decides to confide a little of his situation to Lisette.

What follows is an enjoyable mystery story in which Max and Lisette travel to France to find Tristan. For the sake of propriety, Lisette suggests they travel as plain Mister Cale and his sister until a chance encounter with a neighbor puts paid to that idea and they are instead forced to travel as a married couple. I confess to the fact that the “pretend couple” is a favorite trope of mine, and I thought this one was handled very well.

The advantage of a road-trip story is that it gives the listener time to get to know both principals and allows the attraction between them to develop at a realistic pace. But while Max is upfront with Lisette from the outset, she is more reticent and although she is not untruthful, she lies by omission at times. He finds it difficult to reconcile the fact that he knows she is holding something back with his growing affection for her.

Both of them are also carrying a couple of cases of emotional baggage as well. Lisette doesn’t want to end up like her mother – with a couple of children and no means of support and disappointed in the man she loves, and Max is living daily with the prospect that he may someday succumb to the madness that killed both his father and his uncle.

Max and Lisette are both very sympathetic characters and it is easy to understand their mutual attraction.  They counterbalance each other – Lisette’s humanity often softens Max’s haughtiness, his intelligence complements her intuition and both are fiercely loyal to those they love. 

The only thing that prevented me from giving this story an A grade is that it feels as though rather too much plot was crammed into the last quarter of the story. I liked the fact that quite a lot of time was devoted to Max and Lisette’s journey and to building the relationship between them, but that probably meant less time for the dénouement.

But despite that, I still enjoyed this audiobook immensely.  Corrie James is a very talented audio performer indeed; her voice is soothing with a pleasant musicality about it, and her narration was clear and well-paced. Every character was clearly voiced and can be easily differentiated by the listener, from the gravelly-voiced ex-chief of the Sûreté, Eugène Vidoc, to the slightly affected drawl of Dom’s ex-actor butler and general factotum, Scrimshaw.

I thought her performance of Lisette was exceptionally good. Although she has a French mother, she has lived a lot of her life in England, so Ms. James has given her the slightest hint of a French accent which is just perfect. She has what I can only describe as a “kittenish” quality to her voice and it works beautifully for those places where she has become comfortable enough with Max to be able to tease him a little. She also softens the hard edges with which she has invested Max’s voice once he begins to trust Lisette and to fall for her, and then brings them back in force when he exercises his ducal powers and insists on compliance with his demands towards the end.  It’s quite a subtle change, but I thought it spoke volumes as to his growing feelings for Lisette and to the vulnerability of the real man beneath the title.

She also did a great job with the two or three fairly steamy love scenes between the couple, which I think worthy of mention because of the quality of her performance, whether she was voicing the characters or narrating the action. Some of the dialogue may be a bit creaky, but Ms. James delivers it with conviction and puts the “stage directions” in the text (“he rasped”, “she breathed” etc.) to very good use.

I’m really looking forward to the next book in the series.

Caz

Narration:  A-

Book Content:  A

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in!

Violence:  None

Genre:  Historical

Publisher: Tantor Audio

What the Duke Desires was provided to AudioGals for review by Tantor Audio.