Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer

Bath Tangle is one of Heyer's novels with a complicated plot... The Heroine Serena Carlow has some similarities to Sophy, but shes not as likable. She is managing and intelligent,and devoted to her father, but she is not as humourous as Sophy nor as kindly. The novel opens with Serena, who is 25 and her younger stepmother, Fanny, waiting for the men to come back from the funeral of Serena's father, the Earl of Spenborough. Fanny has not had children, so the heir is a cousin, Hartley. He is a country squire, and not used to a big estate like Milverley, which he has now inherited. Serena, being bossy by nature, feels that she ought to advise him on how to manage things, as Earl. However, she is disconcerted when her former fiance, the domineering Lord Rotherham arrives with her father's lawyer. Ivo Lord Rotherham is older than Serena, but they were engaged a few years ago. She broke off the betrothal because they were always quarrelling... but they got on well enough as friends. However, when the Will is read, it emerges that lord Spenborough has made Rotherham the trustee for his daughter's fortune and she has to manage on a smaller income, and pin money, till she marries. Rotherham tells her that Lord Spenborough wanted them to get married and hopes that by setting them up like this it will push them to wed. She says angrily that it is enough to make her marry the first man who offers for her. Lord Rotherman tells her to calm down, and then Serena tells him that she and Fanny will move into the Dower house nearby, and she wants to help her cousin Hartley. Ivo says that it wont work out, as Hartley should be left to learn his job himself. However they make the move and Hartley's wife Jane comes to live at the main house. She is pregnant and she is also something of a domineering woman. She takes over things and soon ther is tension between the 2 houses.