Regency Gold

Jean Lindsay has little money and spends her days under the roof of an unkind, heavy-drinking uncle, where she is routinely mocked. Her fortunes shift once word of a windfall reaches the neighbourhood. Suddenly her threadbare gowns are described as charmingly old-fashioned, and her blunt, direct way of speaking is praised as delightful.

Jean herself has no idea that she has been left anything until the matter nearly slips past her. Her thoughts are taken up with the dashing Marquess of Fleetwater, the gentleman every fashionable London belle is pursuing. What she cannot imagine is that his interest in her is more than a daydream, because he is coming to love her.

Not everyone is pleased by her good luck. Someone resents her and covets the money, and that person is determined to see Jean dead. With the marquess close at hand to protect her, she feels safe, and she is increasingly drawn to him. Yet how a plain girl raised in a Scottish manse managed to win the heart of so sophisticated a lord is a question the story keeps turning over.