Lie By Moonlight

Author: Amanda Quick
Published: June 2005 (Putnam)
Category: Historical Romance
Rating: 9/10

It's another book where the heroine is a teacher! Miss Concordia Glade has recently taken a post at a charter school for orphaned young ladies. However, she soon catches wind that there is a darker reason for her four students' presence in the remote castle. Apparently, a London crime lord with aspirations to higher social standing is going to sell the four young ladies off as classy courtesans. Concordia concots a plan of escape - a plan that includes setting the castle on fire (they didn't mean for the explosions to be that effective) and a midnight flight on horseback.

Their plan seems to be going very well up until they reach the stables, when two unsavory men try to stop them, but Concordia kills one of them with her lantern (not realizing she'd actually kill him), and the mysterious Ambrose Wells, gentleman thief, dispatches the other and helps the ladies escape.

Both Concordia and Ambrose have dirty laundry in their armoires. Concordia is actually the daughter of two famous forward-thinkers. Her parents believed in equal education for men and women. They even had some sort of free-thinking hippie commune. Concordia changed her name so she'd be able to obtain teaching jobs, as no proper society family would want their daughters tainted by a woman from her background.

Ambrose, on the other hand, comes from a family of thieves and con artists, but they were all considered gentlemen because of their family name. His father was murdered and Ambrose escaped, starting a life on the streets. Then he was caught by a wise gentleman named John Stoner (heh, stoner) who wanted a pupil to teach this ancient Asian art called Vanza. So he became Ambrose's Obi-Wan (without the dying at the hand of Darth Vader) and made him his heir. Ambrose no longer needed to steal for his living and used his skills to help people. He would take on assignments, like the one that led him to Concordia, in exchange for favors, not money. For example, this assignment was from a parasol maker who wanted to know who murdered her sister. The police ruled it as an accident, but she knows there was foul play. Ambrose said that for his fee, he would probably need a parasol or two someday.

Ambrose kindly takes Concordia and her students into his luxurious home as his guests, as it is unsafe for them to go off on their own while the crime lord is searching for his stolen "property." Concordia, being an independent, forward-thinking woman, insists on helping with his investigation, and to ensure her participation, she "hires" Ambrose to find out what's going on, and demands that, as his employer, she get to go along. At this point in a so-so book, the heroine would bumble along in investigations, being as NOT slick as possible and get caught snooping in an office. Concordia is not so stupid, and very smart in her role as Ambrose's assistant, although there were a couple close calls, one in which she was almost raped. Ambrose saved the day, of course, and refused to let her participate again. She disobeys him anyway, and saves Ambrose's life.

And you know, Ambrose and Concordia have to discuss their findings and speculations in the library at night with no chaperones or students hanging about. And you know what follows when you're reading an Amanda Quick novel....

Supporting characters are well crafted. You'd think with four young ladies, they'd all blend together, but I didn't feel that way and I liked all of them. They were even similar to Concordia, since they were her students, and stood up for her romantic interests, telling Ambrose that he should marry her lest Concordia wind up like a sensation novel heroine, disgraced after being ravished. So Ambrose, knowing Concordia's independent nature, proposes an unconventional proposal. He lays the onus upon her, saying that Concordia should be the one to propose marriage to him. He even jokes when she asks to speak to him alone, that he doesn't think they should speak in the library, as she might ravish him again.

The ending is most happy and the solution to the mystery is a nice twist indeed. I loved this book.