The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer

The Earl of Rule has decided, at the advanced age of thirty-five, to take a wife. With balls, card-parties, duels and highwaymen, it’s a gloriously frothy story dressed up with fabulous gowns, extravagant wigs and two very appealing protagonists. And The Convenient Marriage delivers on all fronts. There are times when a girl simply needs a bit of frivolity. At the moment that’s an irritating cold, so I was much in need of witty Regency escapades to divert myself from snuffling. Her books may be fluffy and predictable her characters may be much the same from story to story but I adore her: she never fails to delight and distract from whatever life throws at me. Overcoming some misguided help from Horatia's harebrained brother and a hired highwayman, the Earl plans to defeat his old enemy, and wins over his young wife, gifting her with a love that she never thought she could expect.I haven’t read a new Georgette Heyer novel since before I started writing this blog, which means it’s long overdue. There's simply no way he's going to let her get into trouble. But the Earl of Rule has found just the wife he wants, unbeknownst to Horatia, the Earl is enchanted by her. But was it too late, now that she was but a heartbeat away from betraying both him and herself? Her reputation was about to be ruined. She suddenly find - to her own tremulous surprise - she had fallen deeply in love with the man she had married for money. But there is bad blood between Horry's husband and her new acquaitnance, and as complications and deceptions mount, the social tangle grows ever trickier to unpick. Then she meets the attractive and dangerous Lord Robert Lethbridge and her days suddenly become more exciting. As her new husband's attentions fall elsewhere, Horry begins to feel increasingly unhappy. Hers was a marriage made not in heaven but in the coolly logical mind of a very self-possessed young. Their was a convenient marriage, she was only saving her sister from a loveless match, rescuing her family fortune, and providing herself with a life of ease. He agree, and dazzling Horatia married the powerful Earl of Rule. Everyone knows Horry isn't that beauty and has a stutter, but she'll do her best to keep out of the Earl's way and make him a good wife. He has lots of money but they have an old family line. Lizzie's younger sister Horatia conceives a dazzling plan to avert a nuptial disaster, and offers herself, since he really wants to marry into this family. Beauty Lizzie Winwood already is promised to Edward Heron, an also impoverished military, who she loves, but the wealthy Earl of Rule wants her as his wife. When Lord Marcus Drelincourt, Earl of Rule, the most eligible match of Georgian England, offers for the hand of the oldest and prettiest sister of the Winwood Family, he has no notion of the distress he causes his intended.

The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer