Mr. Nigel Howard
An artist whose brilliance, in his fiancee’s words, has yet to be recognized. He never appears on the page, Judith never meets him, and by page 331 he owns Chester House.
Mr. Nigel Howard. CVM Sekai original art. The novel gives no description of him beyond Alexandra calling him handsome, so this is an interpretation.
Mr. Howard is a genuine test of this shelf’s rule. He is discussed repeatedly, he is named, he changes the ownership of a house, and he never once appears in a scene. Judith, who ends up signing property over to him, has never been introduced to him.
He is worth a page precisely because of that. The entire Alexandra subplot is negotiated around a man neither the reader nor the heroine ever meets, which tells you something about how marriage worked as a financial instrument in this book: what matters about him is not who he is, it is that he exists and is male.
This profile is short because the novel is short on him. That is the correct length, not a gap.
The file
| Name | Mr. Nigel Howard. Not to be confused with Nigel Cavendish of the tontine, who is a different man and the lead of book two |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Artist |
| Standing | Unrecognized. Cannot support a wife |
| Circle | The artistic community that had been Lucian’s world, page 164 |
| Attached to | Miss Alexandra Chester |
| On the page | Never. He is discussed and never appears |
| Met by Judith | No. She says so explicitly at page 165, and still transfers him a house at page 331 |
| Status at the end of the volume | Alive, engaged to Alexandra, and the intended owner of Chester House |
| Book and series | A Little Bit Wicked, Last Man Standing book 1, by Victoria Alexander |
Everything the book actually says
His brilliance has yet to be recognized but it will be soon.
“Can Mr. [Howard] support a wife?” “I wouldn’t think so but I can support him.”
Alexandra cannot support anybody. Judith supports Alexandra. So what is being proposed, in plain terms, is that Judith fund an unrecognized painter, and everyone in the conversation understands that.
Nigel is a dear, dear man but I must admit he’s a little too dear.
I don’t know Mr. [Howard].
I told you, I’ve never met Mr. [Howard].
Alexandra’s response to that is to ask whether he is not very handsome, which is not an answer to the objection and is not meant to be.
What he ends up with
I’ve decided to marry Nigel [Howard].
[I] shall speak to my solicitors at once about transferring ownership of the house to Mr. [Howard].
To Mr. Howard. Not to Alexandra, who has lived there for ten years, and not jointly. The property goes to the husband, because in this period that is where property goes, and the novel states it flatly without editorializing.
Judith had wanted to deed the house to Alexandra outright back at page 161 and was advised against it. A marriage supplies the route that a decade of goodwill could not.
What the book withholds
Everything about him as a person. No scene, no line, no age, no description beyond Alexandra calling him handsome. No account of his work, and no evidence for or against the brilliance.
Whether he knows about the house. Not addressed.
Whether he knew Lucian. He comes out of the same artistic community, which makes it likely, and the book never says.
What he thinks of Alexandra. The engagement is reported entirely from her side.
Where he connects
Miss Alexandra Chester
His fiancee, and the only person in the book who describes him.
CharacterLucian, Lord Chester
Whose artistic world Mr. Howard comes out of.
CharacterJudith, Lady Chester
Signs him a house without ever having been introduced.
CastAll characters
Everyone who speaks or is spoken to in this book.
The RaeRae take
Mr. Howard is a rounding error in the plot and a good illustration of why the everyone-gets-a-profile rule earns its keep. Reading only the leads, you would never notice that the Alexandra subplot resolves through a man who is never in a room, and that the resolution is a property transfer to a stranger.
There is a joke buried in the naming too. The novel has two Nigels: this one, an unrecognized artist who cannot support a wife, and Nigel Cavendish of the tontine, who inherits a fortune in book two and cannot be made to want one. Whether that is deliberate I have no idea, and I am not going to pretend I do.
Sources
Primary source is the novel itself: A Little Bit Wicked by Victoria Alexander, Last Man Standing book 1, 374 pages, read on Kindle. Page numbers are Kindle page numbers, verified by in-book search on the terms Howard and Alexandra.
No secondary source, wiki, blurb or adaptation has been used. This page is short because the book is short on him, and every sentence the novel gives him is quoted above.