Sweet's Folly: A novel

To sweet Honoria Newcombe, the news that she was a burden to her maiden aunts came as a shock. On Prudence? On Mercy? Indeed, they had always been a trifle eccentric in their housekeeping, but they had raised Honoria ever since she was orphaned, and never once had she been denied a thing. Still, she could not argue with the evidence of her own ears, and Honoria resolved at once to relieve her beloved aunts of the financial strain she had unwittingly become. And yet, how to do so? Rural Regency England, alas, offered by few alternatives for a young lady of quality determined to leave the home of her childhood. Honoria flies straightway to the side of her friend Emily Blackwood to confer upon the matter. Emily, a talented and ambitious artist, rejects out of hand Honoria's feeble suggestion that she can earn her keep as a governess, or lady's companion: who on earth would hire so gentle and fragile a lady? Very well then, if employment is out of the question, Honoria's only hope is marriage. But marriage to whom? "Claude Kemp," Honoria answers bravely. "Never," asserts Emily. Claude might be a gentleman, but he is arrogant and unkind and Emily will simply not hear of it. If Honoria must marry, let her marry Alexander, Emily's own brother. This begins a comedy of errors so involved that nearly a year is required to unravel its tangled intricacies. Our heroine starts her life at Sweet's Folly (the Blackwood family home) with a certain amount of hope. Hope which rapidly changes to skepticism, to bewilderment, to despair, to astonishment, and at last to supreme happiness. In the interim, she must learn to deal with the machinations of the frustrated Claude Kemp, and with the hilarious antics of her unworldly aunts. And, when a stroke of great good fortune sends Emily, and Alexander and Honoria to London, there is also a most extraordinary transformation to be reckoned with: shy, scholarly Alexander has become a perfect devil with the ladies!