Grand Sophy

The Grand Sophy is one of Heyer's best books albeit there are a few things in it which date it. It is a family based story set soon after the Napoleonic wars had ended. Sophy Stanton Lacy is the daughter of a widowed diplomat, and has grown up living mostly in Portugal. Her father Sir Horace, comes to London to visit his sister, and to ask her to take Sophy in for a while, as he has to go on a mission to Brazil and cant take her. Elizabeth, his sister, is married with a large family, and she is willing to take in Sophy, but she tells Horace that she is not entertaining very much so she's not sure if she can bring her out in Society. Horace learns that his eldest nephew Charles is engaged to a young woman from a very prudish family, Eugenia Wraxton, and his nieice Cecilia is in love with a young man who has no money, so the family are trying to keep social activities to a minimum. Cecilia, who is a beauty, has had a proposal from a well to do young man, Lord Charlbury, but she is infatuated with the young Augustus Fawnhope, who is very handsome and a would be poet. Horace hasn't been all that close to his sister in years, and he only learns now that Lord Ombersley, her husband, has been in serious financial straits for years, and that Charles inherited a fortune from an uncle.. so he paid off the worst debts and pressed his father into letting him run the estates. However, he persuades Lady Ombersley to take Sophy into her care and to take her into Society. She is 20 and has been out for some time but on the Continent.