House for the Season

Is Number 67 Clarges Steet the unluckiest house in Mayfair? Every season the beau mondes of the Regency would hire a house in the heart of London's fashionable West End at disproportionately high rent for often inferior accommodation and yet Number 67 Clarges Street, a town house complete with staff, remains vacant from year to year. Could it be that it is associated with ill luck and even death? Something must be done so that the servants of this house don't lose their livelihood.  Salvation seems to come in the form of Roderick Sinclair who confirms he wishes to rent the house for the current season. The staff is overjoyed-until they find that Mr. Sinclair is a terrible miser who is planning no parties. Furthermore, his ward, Fiona, though a dazzling Highland beauty, does not seem to possess one bright idea in her head. But it is Rainbird, Number 67's clever and elegant butler, who sees through her façade and resolves to help his mysterious mistress in whatever way he can.

"Oh to be as beautiful as Euphemia!" plain Jane Hart sighs when she joins her sister Euphemia at Number 67 Clarges Street for the season. Then Lord Tregarthan might notice her, as she had noticed him and forever lost her heart to the most eligible bachelor of the town. But Euphemia's fate is to flirt through balls and into the arms of a marquis, while Jane's is to stay home, amusing herself with snooping into the strange death of Miss Clara Vere-Baxton, a former tenant of Number 67-until the downstairs staff transforms a plain Miss into the season's sensation and sends her waltzing dangerously close to the secret of Clara's demise and into a daring liaison with the lord of her dreams.

Lovely but penniless Harriet Metcalf is aghast when a nobleman's will names her guardian of his snobbish twin daughters when they come out during the next London Season! But is innocent Harriet wily enough for the intrigues of the ton-or its two most eligible bachelors, the Marquess of Huntingdon and Lord Vere? Harriet sees them as suitors for the twins, while the gentlemen see only Harriet's charms. Soon she is falling in love with one of the dashing rakes…but a cruel betrayal will be her ruin unless the Clarges Street servants can save a lady's honor when she loses her heart.

Lord Guy Carlton, late of His Majesty's regiment and weary from the war in France, has only wine, women, and song in mind when he rents Number 67 Clarges Street for the season. He certainly has no desire for a serious attachment-and marriage, never! Then his merry eyes spot the lovely but very proper Miss Esther Jones. But what will be her fate if she falls in love with the notorious Lord Guy? Though Esther's business acumen has made her one of the richest women in England, her innocence could make her a victim of the wild ways of the ton-unless the downstairs staff at Clarges Street devise a campaign to reform the rake who is laying siege to her heart.

Followers of the series will notice in this volume some personality changes in the odd assortment of retainers who keep the infamous house at sixty-seven Clarges Street, in London's Mayfair, at the ready for whatever entrepreneur will rent it as a launching pad into the London social season. This time the renters are an unlikely couple, the Goodenoughs, apparently father and daughter, she a great beauty, he silent and mysterious. Their secrets eventually become known to the downstairs troupe, but the indomitable butler Rainberd rallies the support forces. When Emily Goodenough's social gaffes and earthy winsomeness capture the ton's most eligible bachelor, another successful season at the house comes to a close.

Jenny Sutherland is pretty, but the lovely country girl is also vain. Her guardian has decided that a London season is just the thing to give the fair Jenny a sorely deserved set-down. Meanwhile, the handsome Duke of Pelham, owner of 67 Clarges Street, has returned from Europe at last-to find a wife. Used to women doting on him, the Duke turns the town against the disdainful Jenny who dares to spurn him at her very first London soiree. Alas, he's fallen in love with the miss he's just ruined! Now his butler Rainbird has a mischievous plan to get Jenny into the Duke's arms-and teach this upstairs Lord and Lady a humbling lesson about downstairs servants-and the human heart.