Sir Lindsey, a young baron's son, wins a textile mill in a friendly game of cards and decides to visit the place to appease his father, where he meets the mill's clerk Aubrey Warren. Lindsey is immediately taken by the young man and begins to woe him, despite all their discrepancies in rank and temperament. And even though Aubrey would never agree to be a kept man, he can't entirely disregard Lindsey's enthusiastic affection.
Since Lindsey seems incapable of discretion soon his family and friends are aware of his affections, and not afraid to speak against Aubrey, while Aubrey's coworker seems to have his own feud against him.
At first I thought the book was very similar to "The Only Gold", so very slow burn with a lot of workday details. At the beginning there is a lot of information about the workings of a textile mill, engineering and electricity. But they actually end up together reasonably soon, most of the book is about them trying to find a way to be together and battling a lot of meddling and strife.
I thought the historical detail was very good, for the most part, but I was confused by the reaction of Lindsey's family and friends.
It seemed his father managed to build a kind of support network for him, so he's surrounded by people of his own inclination for the most part, which makes it even weirder that he doesn't realize himself until he meets Aubrey and also that everyone is against Aubrey at first. I can understand the discrepancy in rank and status, but apparently a dalliance with footmen or game keepers would have been acceptable, since his sister seems to try and throw those people at him, so that left me a bit confused at first. Why she, and his friends, never bothered to just teach him some measure of discretion instead is beyond me.
I know a lot of historical books do this, a tight knit group of homosexuals that help protect each other, but it comes of as unrealistic and overdone at times, because sometimes it feels like everyone is gay in this book.
At the same time the book does throw out the fear of imprisonment and public disgrace out as a point of blackmail. It left me a bit confused sometimes, since it kept downplaying the stigma in one place, then blow it back up in another.
I really liked Aubrey's and Lindsey's relationship, though. Lindsey really is like an overgrown puppy, excitable, joyous, loyal and entirely oblivious with little impulse control. He wants everyone to know how much he loves Aubrey, not matter how unacceptable that is. But he tries, he really does, to learn, to be more discreet and to let Aubrey have as much control as he needs.
Aubrey is really the polar opposite of Lindsey. He had a hard live and he worked hard for his place in it. He's diligent, hardworking, fiercely independent, ambitious and clever. He's often appalled by Lindsey's callousness regarding their different situations but has a hard time denying him anything.
It's actually a pretty lovely romance, but there are certainly quite angsty, dramatic and dark passages in the book. Some of the antagonism really seems quite over the top at times and I felt the book could have been a bit nicer to it's two heroes.
But it is still an awesome book, the relationship between the two is just so adorable, I couldn't help but love it, even if the angst put me off at times. That just means the book was doing it's job, because I really felt for both of them.