Friday's Child Part V

 Hero makes another of her social gaffes, agreeing to have a driving race with another society woman, and Sherry loses his temper with her.  He tells her that she is going to have to stay with his mother and learn how to behave.  She is upset and angry, because she know that Lady Sheringham does not like her and she cant bear the thought that she let Sherry down.  She runs away, and seeks advice from George and Sherry's other bachelor friends.  They agree to help her and persaude her to go to Bath to stay with Lady Saltash, an elderly society lady and Ferdinand Fakenham's grandmother, who will look after her and teach her more about society.  

While she is away, Sherry hunts everywhere he can think of, to find her, but he cannot. He begins to realise that she loved him and that he himself is in love with her, and that it is time he put aside his playboy ways and settle down.  He tells his mother she will have to move out of their country house and that he is going to try his best to get Hero back.   However, she says that Hero has probably run off with a lover and he should find her and divorce her. 

Sherry has a sudden inspiration that his wife may have gone to Bath, to get a job in a school there.  So he goes escorting his mother and Isabella.  Lady Sheringham is hoping that if he does get a divorce, he will marry Isabella.  

But to his amazment he sees his wife, walking down the road with George who has gone to warn her that Sherry is coming to Bath.  Hero has been learning more about society and has also acquired a new admirer, an older man called Jasper Tarleton.  The Sheringhams go through a fantastic drama, where Jasper tries to elope with Hero, not knowing her to be married, and Montague Revesby tries to compromise Bella so that she will have to marry him.  However, Bella turns up at the inn where Hero is anxiously talking with Jasper, having jabbed at Revesby with a hat pin and generally made his life a misery. 

Sherry arrives and he and Hero are reconciled and Revesby acts in a miserably cowardly way, which forces him out of their social circle.  Isabella finally gives way to her love for George, whom she has always preferred and agrees to marry him. Hero and Sherry agree to return to London and to take up their positon as Lord and Lady of Sheringham Place and to have a baby. 

This is one of Heyer's best novels, with a convoluted plot, fantastic twists and turns and a set of funny characters who make up ridiculous stories.