His Convenient Marriage ranks low on both Amazon and Goodreads but I like it. Reviewers notice the romance seems to come out of left field, that Miles, the hero, gives almost no indication he loves heroine Chessy, that the minor characters complicate the relationship, that Chessy is weak willed at the beginning and that the sister and nasty neighbor are overdone. I shared this opinion the first time I read the story, but it stuck in my mind and I reread it several times and liked it better each time.
The romance is subtle but real. Miles shows he cares about Chessie immediately although he’s not demonstrative and thinks she is in love with someone else.
Let’s see whether I can show why His Convenient Marriage is a winner for me. First a quick plot synopsis.
Plot Synopsis – Click to Avoid Spoilers
Story opens with Chessie’s spoiled younger sister Jen bursting with news. Alastair, son of the local rich guy, whom Chessie dated the summer before her dad died in disgrace, is back. His father sent him to America two years before and Chessie heard nothing from him after a couple letters. Many things changed in his two year absence: Chessie’s dad died bankrupt and in disgrace after embezzling from his clients, Miles bought their old home and Chessie now works for him and lives with Jen in a separate annex in their old house. Quite a come down.
Jen is excited. Surely Alastair will ride in like a white knight to save Chessie from her life of drudgery working for novelist Miles as combination housekeeper and secretary! Except Chessie isn’t excited. She realized long ago Alastair was never serious about her and isn’t keen to reprise her role as lovestruck girlfriend, especially given her current status.
Jen is antagonistic towards Miles, has no consideration for him, resents her sister’s willingness to work for him (and support her by the way). Chessie likes Miles in a distant way and makes peace between him and her sister. Miles treats her with respect but not warmth until that same night when he asks Chessie to go out for dinner. In fact it’s the first time he calls her by her first name, not Miss LLoyd.
More surprises. Miles asks Chessie to marry him; he says while it could be platonic initially he will want closer relations eventually. He says he wants to entertain and needs a hostess and he’s angry with Jen on Chessie’s behalf; Jen takes and takes, complains all the while. This is first hint Miles might care for Chessie.
Chessie promises to consider it, She imagines making love with Miles, and is stunned when she realizes just how attractive he is. In the restaurant foyer she runs into Alastair’s step mother, the glamorous, ultra malicious, spiteful Linnet who makes her usual catty comments, implies Chessie is virginal and untouched because no one wants her. Chessie immediately corrects her, in fact she is engaged to Miles. Miles is angry that she used him to score points and has not committed herself.
Jen has Alastair in their sitting room when they get back and he’s chagrined that Chessie doesn’t fling herself into his arms. His dad, Sir Robert, had a stroke and moved himself, Alastair and Linnet back home to recover. Alastair wants to sell the home while Sir Robert is incapacitated and resents that his dad will prevent it. Chessie doesn’t like Alastair’s attitude about his father.
Meanwhile, Jen is getting into trouble. She attends an expensive school on scholarship and Chessie has ensured Jen has all the right label clothes and gear. Lately Jen has been out drinking with an unsavory guy and we learn later has cut classes, and not studied for her A levels. If Jen does not secure top grades then she cannot go to university; Chessie is counting on Jen leaving home and being on her own.
This evening sets the stage: Chessie, the heroine torn between her care for Jen, her natural resentment of Jen’s selfishness and her own growing feelings for Miles; Miles the ex war journalist turned author who tells Chessie his former fiancée rejected him after his injury, revolted by his scars and handicap. Alastair who expected Chessie to fall all over herself being grateful he returned, Linnet who cannot stop making trouble with gossip and malicious spite. Jen, the spoiled, careless sister.
We have several scenes with Linnet playing lady-of-the-manor, patronizing Chessie, flirting with Miles, being an all around first class obnoxious vamp. More scenes with Miles insisting Chessie play fiancee, wear his ring, sit at his table, entertain his visiting sister and Linnet when she calls. Alastair shows himself to be vile, selfish and unloving towards his father and complacent towards Chessie.
Linnet tells Chessie that Miles had been engaged to actress Sandie Wells, recently divorced after she married someone else and she is back in England. Surely Chessie realizes she cannot compete, that Miles simply was using her as Sandie’s temporary stand in? Chessie decides to find a different job and quit living at Miles’ once Jen is at college.
Eventually everything comes to a head at Sir Robert’s midsummer party. Miles buys Chessie a gorgeous dress and escorts her. He cannot dance due to his injuries but watches Chessie swirl around with all the men who lined up to ask her to dance. At one point he disappears due to a lady phoning for him. Chessie decides to leave herself. When she’s retrieving her wrap she overhears Alastair and Linnet; it’s obvious they have been lovers for years, even the summer Alastair dated Chessie, that Alastair greatly fears his father recovering and disinheriting him.
Chessie goes home, disgusted with all the lies and deceit, with Alastair and Linnet, with her sister jeopardizing her future, and most of all, with Miles for pretending to care for her even while he’s spending days in London when Sandie Wells is staying at his flat. She’s ready to chuck it all in and leave the bunch to fend for themselves when Miles comes home with crying Jen. Jen was with her boyfriend who wanted her to buy and then sell drugs; he was arrested and the police took her in too. She called Miles who brought her home. Miles tells Chessie he knows she wants to leave but she should delay until Jen’s more settled.
Chessie and Miles go to bed together, he tries to tell her something important, but Chessie cuts him off. She thinks he’s going to tell her about Sandie Wells and doesn’t want to hear it. Miles is in great pain afterwards from his back injuries, tells her that he wants to be free of the pain, free to take his wife to bed, to kick a soccer ball with his kids.
The next morning she discovers he’s gone and he took his portable typewriter with him, indicating a long absence. She’s heartbroken that he left without a good-bye. She finishes typing his manuscript and takes it to the post office where she runs into Sir Robert’s nurse who tells her that Miles is in London for a risky back surgery.
Chessie goes to the London clinic and tells Miles not to have the operation, it’s not worth the risk and if Sandie Wells really loved him she would love him the way he is, not require perfection at the risk of long term damage. Miles tells Chessie he is doing it for her, that she’s the one he loves, that Sandie Wells stayed at his flat but he stayed elsewhere, that he wants to make love to her all night long, that he fell in love with her two years earlier when they met. Chessie tells him that she’s marrying him no matter what happens and we have the Happy Ever After.
Why His Convenient Marriage Works
From the synopsis you can see why readers find the romance lacking.
Miles is emotionally distant and it’s hard to believe he could have been in love with Chessie for two years without showing it. However, I find this realistic given the situations for both characters two years prior. Chessie’s world caved in. Her dad revealed as a crook, dead, she herself responsible for her sister, homeless and dumped by friends after the scandal. Miles, badly injured in his last journalism assignment, in pain, dumped by his former fiancée horrified by his scars. Even had Miles not been in pain emotionally and physically he wouldn’t have tried to court a girl as devastated as Chessie was.
Chessie acts wimpy. Actually Chessie acts like someone who put her life and emotions in the freezer two years ago and simply wants to get through the time until Jen is off at school and she can look to her own future. Chessie shows great strength to take on a housekeeper/typist role, to live in her old home as an employee, to put up with her sister’s tantrums. She doesn’t stand up to Miles but she doesn’t need to.
Linnet is appalling. This is true. Linnet is constitutionally incapable of not flirting with any decent looking or rich man and she’s vicious, spiteful, takes glee in seeing Chessie living as an employee and in her mind, humbled. Chessie is a lady and Linnet is a bad imitation, and everyone can tell the difference. Add to that natural envy that an aging vamp has for a younger, pretty girl and we have all the reason Linnet needs to be malicious and make trouble. I suppose one could see Linnet as over the top, but given her character as sketched in the first 20 pages, Linnet is perfectly cast.
Alastair is an entitled jerk who gets little page time. He tries to make Chessie believe he’s in earnest about her at the midsummer party but Chessie by this time knows she loves Miles and doesn’t like Alastair at all, even before learning he’s been cuckolding his own father.
Sister Jen is a flat character. True. Author Craven portrays Jen as spoiled, willfully ignoring reality in favor of “well it should have been”, rude to Chessie and Miles, lazy, selfish. She doesn’t develop much as a person until the very end when she realizes that ignoring studies to go drinking might mean no university. We don’t see her after this so cannot see whether she matures.
The romance is believable given the people and the situations. The other characters act consistent with their personalities as written, the setting and plot are solid. Author Craven advances the plot and story with dialogue that shows personalities and actions that confirm character.
Overall
Given the complex set up followed by simple plot, author Sara Craven tells a very good story, a believable romance between two people who were badly injured two years ago who now find their future and happiness with each other.
Title misleads. Miles proposes a marriage for convenience, all the while wanting more, but the characters are engaged, not married through the story. His Convenient Marriage is part of the Wedlocked! series. The story is excellent and the characters are very well created, act consistent with their given personalities as cast.
4 Stars
His Convenient Marriage is available on Archive.org here, as a Nook here and in Kindle form here. You can find used paperback copies at most online used bookstores, Amazon, eBay. I bought the Kindle for myself.
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