School for Manners

When Amy and Effy Tribble, two charming but impoverished spinster sisters, lose out on a much needed inheritance, they place an advertisement in The Morning Post and hire themselves out as professional chaperones. Vowing to prepare even the most difficult misses for marriage, the Tribble sisters will spend a London season on each client in this delightful Regency series, The School for Manners. Felicity Baronsheath, their first assignment, turns out to be more of a challenge than they could ever have imagined. Not only is Felicity indifferent to the idea of marriage but she has been permitted to roam free on her father's estates, hunting and carousing like any young lord. When her neighbor, the Marquess of Ravenswood, agrees to help the Tribbles set up their London town house, he confirms their observation that Felicity is a spoiled brat. And when Felicity insists on remaining unrefined, the Tribbles begin to fear that her season-and their new business venture-will end in disaster.

When Fiona Macleod is sent by her guardian aunt and uncle to spend a London season with the Tribble sisters, it is something of a last resort. At nineteen, Fiona is a beautiful and wealthy Scottish heiress. Yet for some mysterious reason, her several proposals of marriage over the past few years have all fallen through at the last moment. Amy and Effy Tribble, professional chaperons whose School for Manners has recently made them the talk of fashionable London society, are always short of cash and gladly take on Fiona as a new client. They promise to reform the girl, train her in proper comportment and the feminine arts, and guarantee a mutually profitable marriage by the end of the season, taking Fiona off her guardians' hands forever. But when Fiona arrives at the Tribble sisters' shabbily genteel London townhouse, she shocks them by behaving perfectly. They are thoroughly puzzled by their seemingly demure new client, until they take Fiona to her first ball and realize that their charge is an incorrigible flirt. Face-to-face with Lord Peter Havard, the season's most unattainable rake, Fiona loses her composure, betraying her real feelings-and the Tribbles are forced to confront the truth about her past. It may be too late to salvage Fiona's reputation, but the Tribbles-who have never claimed to be perfect-must also consider their own reputations.

The third novel in the School for Manners series finds the Tribble sisters, Amy and Effy, once again entangled in the machinations of the marriage mart. The formidable but lovable spinsters, who earn their living by sponsoring young girls and finding them husbands, take on the case of Delilah, a beautiful, mindlessly flirtatious country heiress. What puzzles everyone is why such a beauty is unmarried at twenty-three and why she is ensconced in the London school of the zany Tribbles. The answer is found in the handsome person of Sir Charles Digby, who has recently returned from the Napoleonic Wars. He is startled to learn he is the cause of Delilah's single state but eager to remedy it. As usual the Tribble sisters, with their salty exchanges and impossible schemes, provide delightful entertainment. And even as Delilah finds happiness, the sisters hear that another customer is on the horizon, an event to be celebrated by Amy and Effy.

Lovely, wealthy, and well bred, Clarissa Vevian has been unable to find a suitable husband because of her terrible clumsiness. Her petite and fastidious mother, the Lady Clarendon, has tried to mold Clarissa into a dainty miss to fit the fashion, but until the fashions fit tall Clarissa, her mother's efforts are doomed to fail. Enter Amy and Effy Tribble, chaperones-for-hire, who have seen three charges through the perils of three seasons and into the waiting arms of eligible gentlemen. Can they do this for Clarissa? Only if they can prevent her falling down the nearest available staircase instead of into the embrace of an appropriate suitor. At Clarissa's approach, tea tables totter, curtains and carriages erupt into flames, and prospective suitors fall to their knees not to profess undying love but to howl in pain after being decked by an errant elbow or felled by a misplaced foot. And when Clarissa enters their home, the Tribbles fear their reputations for matchmaking success, as well as their carpets and furniture, may go up in smoke. Confidence is what Clarissa needs, the kind of confidence that accompanies the friendly attentions of someone like the graceful Earl of Greystone, who rescues the accident-prone Clarissa from an ambush by a would-be highwayman. The earl's feelings for Clarissa seem no more than brotherly, however, and Amy and Effy (when they're not keeping tabs on their own eligible gentlemen) are determined to help Clarissa become the stately, graceful woman that will win the earl's heart-and a few other battles too.

Amy and Effy Tribble can't believe their luck. After four seasons spent molding intractable, wayward, or just plain frumpy young women into marriage material, their fifth season in the chaperone business brings them a dream client. Maria Kendall is beautiful, impeccably mannered, effortlessly graceful, and extremely well-dowered. She is a perfect candidate for marriage, even if none of her real suitors-especially the proud and aristocratic Duke of Berham-quite live up to her dreams. But when the duke meets Maria's vulgar and boorish parents, his proposal is quickly withdrawn. Amy and Effy soon realize that they face their greatest challenge yet-taking on not only Maria but the hopelessly common Kendalls as well.

Miss Harriet Brown, daughter of a Methodist minister, is the embodiment of propriety and Christian charity-too much so, perhaps, for her own good. The virtues Harriet possesses are far from fashionable, but Amy and Effy Tribble, chaperones-for-hire, feel confident that their new charge will attract a worthy vicar or two before the end of the season. First, though, they must vanquish confirmed rake and gambler Lord Charles Marsham, catch though he is, who seems perversely determined to woo Harriet. Little do the Tribbles know that Harriet has her own reasons for encouraging her unlikely suitor-and that they involve enlisting Lord Marsham's help in marrying off the Tribbles! Gentle hints and flirtatious glances are not enough, Harriet fears, to bring Mr. Haddon and Mr. Randolph, the sisters' longtime friends and admirers, up to the mark. No, a man's touch is needed. Meanwhile, Lord Marsham seems to think that it's Harriet who needs a man's touch, while more nefarious plans are being brewed for the Tribbles' future, as old acquaintances-and enemies-gather round in this rousing finale to Marion Chesney's most delightful series.