Bradley was one of the earliest romance novelists I read back in the day. I remember thinking vaguely that her books felt very write-by-numbers; they had all the right ingredients to make them mildly entertaining, but they lacked that extra oomph to make them compelling. This, which I think was her debut novel, really exemplifies that. There are spies, there are lots of attractive men for sequels, there are occasional details (headache powders!) thrown in to try and distract from the fact that it's fairly Wallpaper Regency (the heroine

Spoiler

invents a husband, hires a supposed chimney sweep to masquerade as said husband, then kills off her husband in a fit of pique by sending an announcement to the newspaper, which prints it the next day, complete with embarrassing and over-the-top details

), where the historical setting serves as wallpaper to a distinctly modern comedy of manners. Bradley keeps throwing obstacles in her hero and heroine's path to make up for the fact that there really kind of aren't any, which makes them both seem fairly dumb... but there's nothing objectionable in any of this and it's kind of nice to read about two well-meaning idiots who will end up in a happily-ever-after. However, things just keep getting piled up on top of each other to a point where I can't stand it, culminating in a humiliation for the heroine that makes no historic sense and is narratively annoying.