The Disney movie Lady and the Tramp has one of my favorite songs in it. I like the song that the evil Siamese kitties sing. “We are Siamese if you please, we are Siamese if you don’t please…” I think the song was replaced in the live action version, because it was problematical, but I fully support that. So, why am I mentioning this, other than just giving you more random trivia about the wonderfulness that is me? Well, that’s because Golden’s is a step beyond the live action movie, it’s a Regency era romance based off of the movie. And Disney realllllllly doesn’t want to know about this one. Well, maybe some of them do.
So, here we are, Lady Delilah Darling is in London for her Season. Her father died, and friends of his are her guardians for her season, and they dote on her and she’s just loving life, because, why not? She’s young, beautiful, and the world is at her feet. Except, nothing ever stays that way. Her guardian’s wife, Lady Greene, becomes pregnant, which is good, but she gets sick, which is bad. They have to retire to the country for her health. Delilah is going to be left in the care of Lady Felton, along with her two granddaughters, Amy and Silvia. And everything goes to hell. Lady Felton is awful and her granddaughters are cruel.
Then we have Henry Trampine, the Tramp. He runs several fine gambling hells, and makes good bank on it. He also owns the debt of many of the nobility, ton, and upper classes. No one really fucks with the Tramp, because he is really powerful. One day, he’s out with his boys, and they see a fine lady running through the warrens of London. The Warrens would be the really, really, really not good part of town. They had seen that same lady walking in Hyde Park a few weeks before, and she had gotten into his head, and he hadn’t been able to get her out of it. So, when she comes running into his territory and she gets into trouble, of course he has to rescue her.
I like Delilah’s joyfullness at the beginning of the book. She just glows with it and it seems like she just brings joy and delight to everyone around her. There’s just something about her, even when she’s having the hardest time with Lady Felton that still makes her something special. That something never goes away, really, it just becomes something different and, I think, better, maybe.
Henry is a very strong character. He knows what he wants, and he’s going to do everything he can to get what he wants, and he wants Delilah. And he doesn’t want her just as a one time thing, he wants her all the damn time, and he wants everything from her. He may technically be a criminal, but I think that he is really honorable, in his way. What he says he’s going to do, he does. I can respect that.
OK, there is no spaghetti meal, but it’s the iconic picture from the movie, so…
Lady Cynthia Starrett, lol.
OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out!
In Between the Pages 