This is why people don't respect romance authors.
Dear historically ignorant romance novelist:
The American colloquialism "pissed"--as in "angry"--didn't appear in print until 1943, according to the OED. While I'm sure it existed in spoken use before it made it into print, I'm fairly certain that a British lord in 1876 would not be thinking it.
This is the sort of thing that just drives me up a tree. I mean, I don't expect every author to know what words entered the lexicon when, but something like "pissed" is fairly basic. If one has even a slight anglophile leaning--as an author of historical romance set in England ought to have--then one ought to have better than passing acquaintance with the list of words that have different meanings in Britain and America. Near the top of this list will be "pissed."
I learned the British definition of "pissed" in high school, for Crom's sake. (From its appearance in the philosopher drinking song: "Socrates himself was permanently pissed.")
Bah. You should be shunned by your fellow romance novelists.
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Update: and your copyeditor should join you in Bad Prose Hell for not knowing the difference between passed and past. Someone got paid for this shit?
Additional update: the hero's name is Trystan Kane. Oh, author, no.
I get the distinct feeling this author would rather be writing contemporary romances. And really, she should. At the least, she shouldn't be writing historicals.
Watch this space, because the updates are gonna keep coming! Latest? "Whipchord lean." WTF was the copyeditor doing? This was edited electronically in Word--the spellchecker would have flagged that.