Intriguing beginning, with a mysterious ex-military government agent capturing a scruffy thief and then discovering the grimy boy is an elegant young lady fallen on desperate times.

The predictability of the romantic development is offset by a subplot concerning treacherous Bonapartists, but neither the romance nor the action is able to prevent the story slipping into a repetition of stilted dialogues, lifeless descriptions, and two-dimensional characterisations.

The last few chapters are particularly dire. With a hundred pages to go I had enough interest invested in the outcome to soldier on to the end, but only by skimming and skipping through dozens of ever-more-boring paragraphs.

The historical authenticity of the story wasn't helped by some disturbingly modern colloquialisms and copy-and-paste descriptions of clothing, food, and other atmosphere-building props. ( )