Will the Couple Last? Stella and Randall from Heyer's Behold, Here's Poison: No

Usually, Heyer is quite adept at getting me to believe that a couple's shelf-life is longer than the time period covered in the book: Venetia-Damerel is one good example as are Alaistair-Leonie.

I don't believe in Stella and Randall from Behold Here's Poison, at all. 

In fact, the disconnect is so glaring, I suspect that Heyer originally intended the courtship between Dr. Fielding and Stella to reach its expected conclusion (as opposed to a broken engagement). They speak the same language regarding people in the neighborhood. Stella appears invested in Dr. Fielding's job. He listens to her. In the early chapters of the mystery, they confer easily with each other.

Dr. Fielding's negative aspects feel tacked on--almost as if when Randall came along, he proved more interesting than the other characters to the author, so Stella and he had to get together to make sense of the climax.

The problem is mostly my first point in the original "Will They Last?" post:  a couple in for the long haul need to have something over which they easily communicate. The "something" doesn't have to be a hobby or career or a Very Important long-term goal. It can be simply the ability to discuss dinner. Or kids. Or vacations. For others, it can be religion (going to church) or theology (thinking about church).

The only thing Stella and Randall have in common is that she is beautiful, and Randall admires her decorative capacity (not her amorous ones--she is pretty, not sexy).

Randall-Guy

For a discerning, caustic, and hardheaded man who figures out the mystery's answer before the police and sympathizes with the love affairs of various unhappy men in his family (or, at least, leaves them alone), Randall's decision here about his future bride is a bit hard to credit.

In my Heyer fan fiction, I stick Randall with Guy. For one, they do have something to talk about!

Guy and a friend (both 20 to 25 years old) are in business together as interior decorators. In the book, Randall considers Guy's taste execrable (there are hints that Randall is right). However, Guy did go into the field. Even if the primary reason was his friend, something about design interested him. 

I have the friend, who is somewhat of a spoiled brat in the book, abandon Guy when Guy's uncle is murdered--

At which point, Randall begins to stake a claim. 

Since Randall appreciates aesthetics and decorates his own apartment with elegant sumptuousness that, nevertheless, doesn't cross the line into tawdry vulgarity, he would appreciate an equal eye for aesthetics. 

He wouldn't let Guy decorate anything he inhabited, of course, no matter how infatuated. I kept Guy's poor taste in decorating (Guy has been misled by current fashions), but I gave the character a good eye for antiques. In my fan fiction, after Guy and Randall's marriage, Guy becomes an appraiser.

Since Guy is Stella's brother and the son of a suspected perpetrator, the conclusion may remain almost as is. 

I left Stella and the doctor alone--eh, maybe they get together; maybe they don't.