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The Hidden Heart
Beautiful, young Lady Caroline Eddington found it devilishly difficult to be the best friend of Lord Miles Trilby. Perhaps the most handsome lord in the realm, he was also the most heartless. Cold to the notion of romance, he turned icy at the idea of marriage. Thus Caroline had to be most wary of letting her feelings toward him grow too warm. Gayle Buck has freelanced for regional publications and has worked for a radio station as a secretary. Until recently she was involved in public relations for a major Texas university. Besides her Regency romances, she is currently working on projects in fantasy and romantic suspense.
243 pages, Paperback
First published May 5, 1992
15 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
Gayle Buck
55 books18 followersGayle Buck has freelanced for regional publications, worked for a radio station and as a secretary. Until recently, she was involved in public relations for a major Texas university. Besides her Regencies, she also writes fantasy and romantic suspense. She lives in Bandera, Texas.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 20, 2019
D+ / 2.5 stars
Read for the November prompt (Sweet/Spicy) in the 2019 TBR Challenge.
I often find myself reaching for a Traditional Regency when it comes to the “Sweet or Spicy” prompt. Most of the romances I read these days contain sex scenes, so I tend to interpret the “spicy” part of the prompt to mean something beyond that, like erotica or erotic romance, and I don’t have anything from either genre on my TBR – hence my gravitating to the “sweet” side of the prompt.
The Hidden Heart was originally published by Signet in 1992, and is billed as a fake-relationship story wherein the hero, Miles, Earl of Walmesley (who is, for some reason also referred to throughout as Lord Trilby which confused me at first, as I thought the author was talking about two different characters!), needing to forestall his imposing great aunt’s plans to wed him to a young lady he has never met, asks his best friend, Lady Caroline Eddington, to pose as his betrothed for the duration of his aunt’s upcoming visit. Lady Caroline has - of course - been in love with Miles for years, but has abandoned any hope of anything more than friendship, while Miles is - also of course – completely oblivious to her feelings. Caroline is a great heroine, but overall, The Hidden Heart was a bit of a disappointment. Caro and Miles spend very little time together on the page, and the romance is practically non-existent; in fact, it feels as though the author got to the end of the book and thought “Oh no! I forgot to get Caro and Miles together – I’ve got a couple of pages left, so I’ll do it now!”
When Miles initially asks Caro to act as his fiancée during his great aunt, the Grand-duchess of Schaffenzeits’ visit, she turns him down, fully cognizant of the detrimental effect such a thing could have on her reputation if it’s ever discovered. Miles does realise he’s asking a lot (but he asks anyway) and isn’t completely surprised by his friend’s refusal – but when the duchess arrives early, he asks again – and this time Caro, in a moment of weakness engendered by the continual and highly unpleasant sniping of her aunt and the importuning of an unwanted and far too persistent suitor (who can’t understand that no means no) agrees to help Miles out.
The predictability of the story is countered somewhat by the character of Caro, who does not waste her time pining for Miles or allow herself to be bullied by her aunt. She is cool and capable most of the time, able to squash her aunt’s pretentions and turn her barbed remarks back on her with poise and ease, even though it’s clear that she does find her presence difficult to deal with at times; in fact, watching Caro deal with her aunt was one of the things I enjoyed most about the book! I also liked the fact that the author doesn’t turn Caro’s new sister-in-law into a complete bitch who wants Caro out of the house because she doesn’t want any competition. The Grand-duchess is a wily grande dame, but Miles himself is poorly characterised and is actually hardly present in the story. He failed to make much of an impression on me; all I really knew about him was that he had a reputation for being a bit irresponsible, and that he’s being pretty selfish when he asks Caro to pretend to be engaged to him. When he and Caro do finally fall into each other’s arms at the end of the book, he spins her a yarn about how seeing a friend destroyed by love caused him to never want to experience it and then uses that to explain why he never showed any sign of feeling more for Caro than friendship, it was utterly ridiculous and came completely out of nowhere. I suppose Caroline got what she wanted in the end, but no way was Miles good enough for her.
TL:DR. The Hidden Heart was a dud. I liked the heroine, but pretty much everyone else –including the hero – was awful. There are better Trads out there than this one.
Read for the November prompt (Sweet/Spicy) in the 2019 TBR Challenge.
I often find myself reaching for a Traditional Regency when it comes to the “Sweet or Spicy” prompt. Most of the romances I read these days contain sex scenes, so I tend to interpret the “spicy” part of the prompt to mean something beyond that, like erotica or erotic romance, and I don’t have anything from either genre on my TBR – hence my gravitating to the “sweet” side of the prompt.
The Hidden Heart was originally published by Signet in 1992, and is billed as a fake-relationship story wherein the hero, Miles, Earl of Walmesley (who is, for some reason also referred to throughout as Lord Trilby which confused me at first, as I thought the author was talking about two different characters!), needing to forestall his imposing great aunt’s plans to wed him to a young lady he has never met, asks his best friend, Lady Caroline Eddington, to pose as his betrothed for the duration of his aunt’s upcoming visit. Lady Caroline has - of course - been in love with Miles for years, but has abandoned any hope of anything more than friendship, while Miles is - also of course – completely oblivious to her feelings. Caroline is a great heroine, but overall, The Hidden Heart was a bit of a disappointment. Caro and Miles spend very little time together on the page, and the romance is practically non-existent; in fact, it feels as though the author got to the end of the book and thought “Oh no! I forgot to get Caro and Miles together – I’ve got a couple of pages left, so I’ll do it now!”
When Miles initially asks Caro to act as his fiancée during his great aunt, the Grand-duchess of Schaffenzeits’ visit, she turns him down, fully cognizant of the detrimental effect such a thing could have on her reputation if it’s ever discovered. Miles does realise he’s asking a lot (but he asks anyway) and isn’t completely surprised by his friend’s refusal – but when the duchess arrives early, he asks again – and this time Caro, in a moment of weakness engendered by the continual and highly unpleasant sniping of her aunt and the importuning of an unwanted and far too persistent suitor (who can’t understand that no means no) agrees to help Miles out.
The predictability of the story is countered somewhat by the character of Caro, who does not waste her time pining for Miles or allow herself to be bullied by her aunt. She is cool and capable most of the time, able to squash her aunt’s pretentions and turn her barbed remarks back on her with poise and ease, even though it’s clear that she does find her presence difficult to deal with at times; in fact, watching Caro deal with her aunt was one of the things I enjoyed most about the book! I also liked the fact that the author doesn’t turn Caro’s new sister-in-law into a complete bitch who wants Caro out of the house because she doesn’t want any competition. The Grand-duchess is a wily grande dame, but Miles himself is poorly characterised and is actually hardly present in the story. He failed to make much of an impression on me; all I really knew about him was that he had a reputation for being a bit irresponsible, and that he’s being pretty selfish when he asks Caro to pretend to be engaged to him. When he and Caro do finally fall into each other’s arms at the end of the book, he spins her a yarn about how seeing a friend destroyed by love caused him to never want to experience it and then uses that to explain why he never showed any sign of feeling more for Caro than friendship, it was utterly ridiculous and came completely out of nowhere. I suppose Caroline got what she wanted in the end, but no way was Miles good enough for her.
TL:DR. The Hidden Heart was a dud. I liked the heroine, but pretty much everyone else –including the hero – was awful. There are better Trads out there than this one.
May 3, 2015
I had such high hopes for “The Hidden Heart” and I was so disappointed. The author, Gayle Buck is new for me, and I thought the plot outline sounded really fun: old friends plotting an engagement to fool a pushy old grand duchess. The side secret is that she, Lady Caroline, has supposedly always been in love with the prospective “groom”, Lord Trilby. And he just needs to pull the whole fiasco off so dear old Grand Duchess and her choice of a bride will exit and leave him alone.
It all could have been such fun, but it just didn’t work for me. My biggest problem was the whole tone of writing. Buck obviously is determined to write in the vernacular of Regency England, when the story takes place. That’s ok, but in my opinion she went way overboard to the extent that many paragraphs had to be read more than once to understand the meaning. Even though it’s my favorite era, (and I have read hundreds of Reg. England stories) I’m ok with an author simplifying the wording a bit to make the story more readable. Example pg.149: “… ‘As I am all to aware,’ she agreed cuttingly. ‘Many times have I observed that selfsame thing about you, Miles, which has in turn led me to lament the lack of vigor and fortitude it bespeaks. Any relationship, whether personal or political, requires those singular traits of strength if one is to weld the connection successfully.’” Huh?
And this comment between arguing young men: “… ‘We have naught but the utmost regard for Lady Caroline, yet this sordid tangle cannot but raise unseemly curiosity in our breasts,’ Mr. Underwood said.” Really?
I want to enjoy the story, not interpret every soliloquy.
My other major beef with the story is that I never felt like Lady Caroline really did have a long-standing secret love with Lord Trilby. Obviously they were good friends from childhood, but no thread of “secret love” was woven through the story: no build-up, no tension, no jealousy, no secret thoughts, no secret looks, no confidants, etc. How would I, the reader, ever come to feel her secret passion? Lady Caroline had courage and guts from the start, but after that she went flat.
I also didn’t go for the goofy explanation Miles gave to Caroline in the last couple pages on why he was sour on falling in love and marriage. That was completely unbelievable.
To borrow a phrase from pg.220: this book “lacked some measure of enthusiasm” for me.
It all could have been such fun, but it just didn’t work for me. My biggest problem was the whole tone of writing. Buck obviously is determined to write in the vernacular of Regency England, when the story takes place. That’s ok, but in my opinion she went way overboard to the extent that many paragraphs had to be read more than once to understand the meaning. Even though it’s my favorite era, (and I have read hundreds of Reg. England stories) I’m ok with an author simplifying the wording a bit to make the story more readable. Example pg.149: “… ‘As I am all to aware,’ she agreed cuttingly. ‘Many times have I observed that selfsame thing about you, Miles, which has in turn led me to lament the lack of vigor and fortitude it bespeaks. Any relationship, whether personal or political, requires those singular traits of strength if one is to weld the connection successfully.’” Huh?
And this comment between arguing young men: “… ‘We have naught but the utmost regard for Lady Caroline, yet this sordid tangle cannot but raise unseemly curiosity in our breasts,’ Mr. Underwood said.” Really?
I want to enjoy the story, not interpret every soliloquy.
My other major beef with the story is that I never felt like Lady Caroline really did have a long-standing secret love with Lord Trilby. Obviously they were good friends from childhood, but no thread of “secret love” was woven through the story: no build-up, no tension, no jealousy, no secret thoughts, no secret looks, no confidants, etc. How would I, the reader, ever come to feel her secret passion? Lady Caroline had courage and guts from the start, but after that she went flat.
I also didn’t go for the goofy explanation Miles gave to Caroline in the last couple pages on why he was sour on falling in love and marriage. That was completely unbelievable.
To borrow a phrase from pg.220: this book “lacked some measure of enthusiasm” for me.
May 7, 2017
Two words to describe this book: “SELFISH & BORING”.
Except for the heroine, all the other characters weren’t likable at all! They were SELFISH and demanded a lot from the heroine. I felt pity for the heroine and it pained me that she let them step on her. I just wished she had more backbone and told her douche-bag of a brother, sister-in-law, haughty aunt, some of her friends that betted on her and the demanding hero to all go to hell!
I already felt bored starting on the first page. The way the author addressed the four friends was so confusing, Christian names, titles and surnames, are interchanging depending on the one talking. In the end I had to write on a paper to recall who’s who.
I don’t see any love development on the hero and heroines side, only in the end because most part of the book was spend more on other characters. I wanted more interactions between the two.
A lot of old English words were used; I needed a dictionary by my side to survive this book. (Well duh, historical book remember? Facepalms myself)
This is the first book that I’ve read by Gayle Buck and I had high expectations for it just by reading the plot but sadly I hated it. I don’t know if I’ll have the guts to even read the “The Desperate Viscount”, it’s Sinjin’s story but I’ll still give the her other books a try.
Except for the heroine, all the other characters weren’t likable at all! They were SELFISH and demanded a lot from the heroine. I felt pity for the heroine and it pained me that she let them step on her. I just wished she had more backbone and told her douche-bag of a brother, sister-in-law, haughty aunt, some of her friends that betted on her and the demanding hero to all go to hell!
I already felt bored starting on the first page. The way the author addressed the four friends was so confusing, Christian names, titles and surnames, are interchanging depending on the one talking. In the end I had to write on a paper to recall who’s who.
I don’t see any love development on the hero and heroines side, only in the end because most part of the book was spend more on other characters. I wanted more interactions between the two.
A lot of old English words were used; I needed a dictionary by my side to survive this book. (Well duh, historical book remember? Facepalms myself)
This is the first book that I’ve read by Gayle Buck and I had high expectations for it just by reading the plot but sadly I hated it. I don’t know if I’ll have the guts to even read the “The Desperate Viscount”, it’s Sinjin’s story but I’ll still give the her other books a try.
April 23, 2021
Lord Trilby asks Lady Caroline for fake engagement to ķeep off his great-aunt, but she loved him since 1st season. Typo:27.1 Caronlin IS Caroline
September 18, 2014
Ugh, shamelessly used and strung along by Lord Trilby, Caroline somehow still loves/wants him. and his reasons for not marrying her during that first season... weak. liked Viscount Weemswood, wished he was the hero, but wouldn't want him saddled with the heroine or her selfish aunt. The heroine did deliver some great set-downs, she was actually very competent, smart, and practical. Felt like this book showcases the stupidity that results from being in love.
August 23, 2015
Excellent!
She becomes a more accomplished wordsmith as she goes along (through books, not through this book.) Not a slipped scene from start to finish, and delightful conversations.
She becomes a more accomplished wordsmith as she goes along (through books, not through this book.) Not a slipped scene from start to finish, and delightful conversations.
May 31, 2016
I didn't really get some of the reactions in this book from some of the characters, but I also didn't get a very convincing relationship between the H/h either so...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews