In this episode, the young lady is Miss Caroline Upton, daughter of a baron more interested in his stud and horseracing, and she finds herself sponsored by Lady Easton because Lord Easton (and the Prince Regent, no less) incurred a gambling debt. There’s the usual business about getting the girl kitted out for society, and then they’re off to Brighton, since the main season is over. Here, Caroline is unwittingly drawn into the Prince Regent’s rackety set, in peril of her reputation, while Lady Easton and her cronies set about keeping her respectable.
As always with this author, the humour is well to the fore, with Lady Easton and her nephew both incredibly buttoned up and driven by routine, a butler who’s just as much a stickler and a lady’s maid who’s delightfully subversive, and the cause of Caroline getting into trouble on multiple occasions. The joy of this book is seeing the nephew, Lord Bertridge, gradually unravelling as he becomes reluctantly embroiled in Caroline’s affairs.
It’s all jolly good fun, and if there is a certain slackness in historical accuracy, who cares? It’s so much fun, I can’t give it less than five stars.
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