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!" sighs plain Jane Hart when she joins her sister at Number 67 for the season, as then Lord Tregarthan might notice her ... as she has noticed him and forever lost her heart. And while it is Euphemia's fate to flit her way through balls and into the arms of a marquis, Jane's is to stay at home ... until the downstairs staff transform the plain miss into the season's sensation and send her waltzing into a daring liaison with the man 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. And is she 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.

M. C. Beaton brings you the fourth installment of her witty and charming House for the Season series. 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 never marriage! 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.

Another tenant for London's infamous house for the season, from the New York Times bestselling M. C. Beaton Followers of the series will notice in this volume some personality changes in the odd assortment of retainers who keep the house at 67 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.

When the Duke of Pelham returns to his town house at 67 Clarges Street, he is grimly determined to find a suitable wife-but completely unprepared for what the season has to offer. The duke's title alone has always brought him more than his share of feminine attention; claiming not to believe in love, he has never been spurned by a lady. The duke's self-imposed search is soon disrupted by the arrival in London of Miss Jenny Sutherland, a spoiled but beautiful country girl whose vanity is her tragic flaw. According to her guardian Aunt Letitia, lack of competition has made Jenny put on airs; in London, she will get the set-down she sorely deserves. Indeed, at her first important London party, Jenny's blatant disdain for the duke leads to certain disaster. But no one has counted on the intervention of John Rainbird, the shrewd and resourceful butler at 67 Clarges Street. Rainbird befriends Jenny, suggesting she look in the mirror a little less often. The result is a mischievous scheme that will insure Jenny's social success and determine the fate of the close-knit family of servants at 67 Clarges Street.