Unmasked by the Marquess by Cat Sebastian

Unmasked by the Marquess by Cat Sebastian

Narrated by Joel Leslie

Unmasked by the Marquess takes the “chick in pants” trope and queers it delightfully. Charity Church is a foundling who ended up as a child of eight with the Selby family. Charity was to be a housemaid, but the Selby household was a very unusual home and she spent a lot of time with the children, Robert and Louisa. When the book begins, Charity, posing as Robert Selby, accompanies Louisa, now aged 18, to London for a season. The plan is to get Louisa safely married and then “Robert” will disappear. The real Robert died some two years earlier of influenza but even before that, Charity had been masquerading as Robert in order to attend university at Cambridge.

The setup was improbable but not more than I’ve willingly gone along with in the past. There was a bit of handwaving required to believe Charity had gotten away with the masquerade for so long but actually, my biggest question was around how it was she had learned to read. As a foundling child sent to be a housemaid at age eight, that caused my brows to raise the most. Still, I’ve certainly read more unlikely tales and enjoyed them so I put that aside and carried on to enjoy the story.

Alistair, Marquess of Pembroke, is a stick-up-his-butt kind of character. His father was a profligate spendthrift and an adulterer who had three daughters and a long-term relationship with his mistress, Mrs. Allenby. Alistair disapproves of his father and has spent the years since his father’s death working hard to get the family estate back into to the black. He’s just now starting to see the fruits of his labors and is feeling great relief that he will be able to provide securely for those relying on him. Alistair’s younger brother, Gilbert, is a source of worry for him, though. Alistair longs to see him settled in a career – he has a living all set up for Gilbert if only he’d take on a career in the church. Alistair’s concern comes out of a desire for security for those around him. He likes security and respectability and duty. Consequently, he’s seen a dry old stick even though he’s only 34.

When Robert Selby comes to call on Alistair to ask him to assist Louisa’s entry into Society on the basis of a longstanding friendship between Alistair’s father and the Selby patriarch, Alistair finds himself intrigued by the slight young man with the beguiling eyes.

Unlike the standard trope however, Alistair does not feel any qualms about being attracted to someone he believes to be a man. Alistair is bisexual and is comfortable being so, despite his cold and aloof presentation. He’s very discreet about his attraction to men because of the society he lives in but he doesn’t regard it as a reason for shame.

Alistair is initially attracted to Robert (whom he names “Robin”) as a man but when he finds out that Robin is in fact a woman, he is just as attracted. He’s upset he’s been lied to of course and they have to work through that together but Robin’s gender identity is not something which fazes him at all.

In another book the story would have ended at the grand ball Alistair threw to introduce Louisa to society; Charity/Robin would have appeared in a dress and somehow they’d have had their HEA from there. But this is not that book.

Charity – who really does prefer to be called Robin – is nonbinary. She uses female pronouns but presenting as a man is more than just a necessary subterfuge for her education and to help Louisa. The identity “nonbinary” is not explicit in the book of course because that identity wasn’t understood then the way it is now, but it is clear nonetheless. I enjoyed Alistair’s dawning realisation of just how essential Robin’s gender identity was to her happiness and wellbeing, to her sense of self.

I wondered how the author was going to pull off the HEA. There were so many obstacles I was really worried about how it could possibly ever work. Robin had been posing as a dead man for two years and having done so, had denied the rightful heir to the Selby estate his inheritance. Louisa is complicit in the scheme and if they’re found out, both of them would be in Very Big Trouble. Robin is not a Lady; she’s a foundling of “low birth”; a former housemaid. How could she become a Marchioness? And, if all of those things could be satisfactorily resolved, how could Robin live her gender identity as Alistair’s wife? But (after a while) it did work out and when it did, I was all “of course!”

I enjoyed the back half of the book better than the first. Alistair was a little too toplofty at first but once he started to thaw, I began to like him very much. And, once the truth about just who Robin really was had been revealed is when things became really interesting to me.

There’s a lovely found family aspect to the book as well and I enjoyed Alistair’s journey to understanding the things that are the most important in life and how he eventually let others, not just Robin, into his heart.

The narration was good. Mr. Leslie has a wide range of character voices and was able to deliver various depictions of ages, genders and accents to differentiate the cast.

There were some pronunciations that I thought weren’t quite correct,  although they weren’t enough to really bug me, and there were some odd pauses in parts of the narration which threw me a little. I particularly noticed them when there was a reference to the possessive article or a relationship requiring an apostrophe. For example, in a sentence like, “Alistair’s younger brother was late for dinner” (I made that up for illustration purposes), there would be a pause between “Alistair’s” and “younger brother” which gave an effect unintended by the text. However, it was not a constant issue and was confined largely to the first half of the book (another reason I enjoyed the second half better).

The best part of the performance was Mr. Leslie’s portrayal of Robin. Her exuberance for life, her feelings about her identity and her love for Louisa and later, for Alistair, were all evidenced in my ears and that more than made up for any small issues I had.

Kaetrin


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