Gilded Cage

by K.J. Charles

October 23, 2019 · KJC Books

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Susan “Sukey” Lazarus has been a favorite character of mine since I first met her as the sharp-eyed 12-year-old “medium” apprentice in An Unnatural Vice, the second book in the author’s Sins of the Cities series.

Adult Susan, who is bisexual, reappeared nearly two decades later as the friend of one of the heroes in Any Old Diamonds, bent on revenge and just as perceptive. Susan was the engine of the riveting plot twist in that book, which is the first in the Lilywhite Boys series and features a duke’s son, Alec Pyne, and a jewel thief, Jerry Crozier, as the two heroes.

By the end of Any Old Diamonds, it was evident that Susan and Templeton Lane, Crozier’s partner in crime, had a long and fraught history. Gilded Cage is their story, past and present, and one that I was very much looking forward to reading.

Templeton’s real name is James Vane, and he is the great-nephew of Richard Vane, the leader of the “Ricardians” in the author’s Society of Gentlemen series. Thus, Gilded Cage is set in the same universe as the other two series, and connects them both. It is not strictly necessary to have read any of the previous books I mentioned as Gilded Cage works very well as a standalone. I was happy to catch up Jerry and Alec, though, and with many of the Sins of the Cities characters, especially Justin, Susan’s adoptive father, and other members of Susan’s found family. We also get to hear echoes of the lives of Richard and David, the heroes in A Gentleman’s Position, reverberating in James’ life. James is a bit of a black sheep among the staid and titled Vanes, to say the least.

At the start of the book, set in late fall of 1895 and a couple of months after the end of Any Old Diamonds, James is going solo on a jewel theft. He is not at the top of his game, though, rattled by seeing Susan recently and feeling left out now that Jerry is happy with Alec and trying to go on the straight and narrow. James’ judgment is further clouded because his quarry is a gorgeous opal necklace, and he is obsessed with opals.

This being a KJ Charles book, there’s a murder, or rather a double murder. By the end of the first chapter, James gets his opals, but also is thoroughly implicated in the gruesome murders. If James can’t prove his innocence, he’s done for, condemned to either hang or live forever in exile for crimes he didn’t commit.

This is James’ darkest hour, and there’s only one person he can turn to help.

That person is, of course, Susan, definitely clever, often caustic, and seemingly callous. She is equally rattled that James is back in her life, but thanks to her unshakable sense of justice (and perhaps something more she doesn’t care to examine too closely), she agrees to help James clear his name. Susan has worked for years as a private eye, and she’s among the best.

Sharp humor and snappy dialogue permeate this book, which is written with the economy of words that I came to expect from this author.

Here’s a tidbit: James, on the run, sneaks up on Susan in her lodgings, and she hits him in the balls. He’s half recovered when they have this exchange:

“What do you want, then?”

Templeton breathed out, with caution. “Can I stand up?”

“I don’t know. How hard did I hit you?”

The book also has a streak of “screw you, rich people” that, given what has been happening in the U.K. before, during, and after this book was written, I doubt it was unintentional.

The mystery is not much of a mystery, as Susan and James figure out early on who is framing James and why. It’s all very straightforward, no twists. That can be a bonus or a letdown, of course, depending on the reader. In a way, without too many plot meanderings the book was freer to delve more deeply into Susan and James’ second-chance-at-love story.

And there was a lot to negotiate, starting with their past.

James, despite all his devil-may-care attitude, worries for his reputation and is also remorseful about having hurt Susan then and now. Around mark 30% on my e-reader app, James, still hiding in Susan’s rooms, mulls over their shared past and the consequences of their love, which were, as he put it, “predictable, wonderful, and catastrophic.” He hurt her when he’d have given anything to not hurt her, he probably hurt her by turning into a criminal, and he’s hurting her again by dragging up their past. It is a poignant moment that shows James and Susan as people who were vulnerable, doomed, and deeply in love nonetheless, and I felt very sad knowing that these two would go on to spend nearly two decades apart.

It is also when James realizes they may have a future, after all. At least, he muses, she didn’t tell him to fuck off and hand him to the police.

That’s also about when I started to view James as someone other than a privileged youth turned criminal, and, as icing on the cake, all those musings take place as he sweeps her floors, tidies up her place, washes dishes, and catches himself smiling at his memories of Susan as a brash young woman. And, from a more “technical” viewpoint, I believe it was a masterful way for the author to write James and Susan’s backstory without dragging the book down with too many flashbacks.

So Susan spends years believing herself discarded as a rich boy’s plaything, and James feels he was given no chance to explain what really happened and got just as unjustly discarded. Even as they reconnect, there’s still a lot to parse out, as Susan rejects traditional roles for women and wishes to remain independent.

Second-chance stories are not among, say, my top five favorite romance tropes because I feel that they often involve my least liked plot device, the big mis, or that I have to get over the fact that someone is a bit “at fault” for what went down to keep the couple apart in the first place (I don’t know what that says about me, maybe that I am not a very forgiving person.)

But, in another strength in this book, not only were James and Susan not “at fault”, per se, they also talk about and make peace with their years apart. They are essentially content with being where they are with their lives. (Minus being wanted for murder.)

There’s a lot of wisdom in this book, and not just wise words about romantic relationships and the role of women, past and present. I caught myself re-reading several parts of it and nodding my head in agreement with Susan. And she touches on something that has haunted me since I first read it weeks ago. Discussing (largely off-page) episodes of domestic violence involving her adoptive sister, she says: “I wonder how many women have died giving men a second chance.”

Oh dear god, I do too.

It’s sobering, and moving, and it goes a long way to show why Susan has plenty of real misgivings about forging a future with James.

For one, there’s the no small matter of James’ thieving career, and whether he’d be able to shed the Templeton Lane persona even if he wanted to do it. He’s in a gilded cage, all right, in more ways than one. And, for Susan, part of the issue is leaving the safety of her own “cage” and fully commit to James, as she wants to believe herself to be completely self-sufficient.

I don’t want to be looked after, or taken responsibility for, or helped. I want someone who listens to what I say, respects it, and trusts me to look after myself.

That is adoptive dad Justin’s moment to shine, too. If you stand alone you can’t get hurt, Susan says. Justin, in a “been there, done that” way, replies that yes, you can: “Just differently.”

It is a delight to see Susan and James take flight together, and their romance is very satisfying (for fans of second-chance romance especially). There’s also a bit of road trip thrown in and a delicious “only one bed in the room” scenario, refreshingly with no coyness on Susan’s part. She knows what she wants, and she takes it. James stands ready to support her in any way she will allow him. I had very few quibbles, including the aforementioned too-neatly-wrapped-up mystery. And bonus points for James’ marriage proposal of sorts, one of the best I’ve read in a good while:

“I’m not going to ask you to be mine, but I very much want you to know that I’m yours.”