These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer

This is the book that continues the story begun in The Black Moth, although all the names have been changed. In this book we get to know more about the Duke of Avon (no longer the Duke of Andover), Justin Alastair (formerly known as Hugh Tracy Clare Belmanoir, also known as "Devil").

Our duke, Justin, collides with a red-haired urchin in a less-savory area of Paris. The young boy (Leon) strikes him as looking familiar so he does something totally unexpected--he adopts him as his page.

This is one of Georgette Heyer's books where a girl dresses up as a boy and is convincing at it...and yet when she dresses as a girl she is breathtakingly womanly. Even though this book was charming and entertaining and all of that, I still always stumble at the idea of the girl/boy cross-dressing thing being actually convincing. Doesn't seem likely. AND our romantic protagonist is a much, much older man, a reformed rake, in fact (the older man-younger woman type of romance makes my mother growl--could it be because she's an older woman married to an older man? :D). AND I didn't really like our female protagonist much either. But all those are just trifling objections because mostly I just love Georgette Heyer's style. Her dialogue is so clever and her characters are so likeable. Now--on to the last book in this little series, Devil's Cub.