The great thing about queer 19th century romance is that the authors do not need to come up with increasingly convoluted reasons to keep the lovers apart. Rather than resorting to awful relatives, one or the other of the two lovers being stupendous jerks, or handing someone the proverbial idiot ball, the plot conflict is obvious. They’re queer and it’s the 19th century.
This often improves the story as it lets you tell the narrative of two people in love learning to work together against a common enemy. (Not that I don’t appreciate a well-done “I hate this person and want to bone them at the same time” story...it’s just that so few are well done.)
At the same time, the fact that this is a queer narrative means that there are certain issues that arise that don’t appear in heterosexual fiction: the fixation with paying one’s own way and of not being a financial burden struck me as interesting because it’s not common in heterosexual romance set in this era...for obvious reasons. Women are always burdens on their spouses and the male financial situation is expected to accommodate a woman. Or the reverse: women who men seduce for their future, but fall in love with them...and their fortune. Everyone is literally ALWAYS marrying for money.
So is the discomfort with it here a reflection of how toxic masculinity impedes care, an example of a more honest relationship freed from the capitalism that infests hetersosexual bonds, or merely a reflection of Aubrey’s own pride combined with how class expectations create skewed understandings of autonomy.