Back in Society — Marion Chesney

The Poor Relation hotel is the toast of London, its guests are paying hard cash, and its owners are preparing to sell up and return to a life of quality. But one last romantic adventure awaits them.

Lady Fortescue and her friends, newly attired in silk and lace, must rescue yet another poor relation. Driven into hiding at the hotel by a tyrannous father, a monstrous governess, and a rich but wizened suitor, Lady Jane Fremney attempts to end her life. The hoteliers are determined to improve this downcast young beauty's prospects by bringing her out for the Season, as a country miss.

The young bucks call on Jane in droves, among them the handsome but racy Comte de Mornay, an exile from Napoleon's France who has broken many a heart and so far eluded matrimony. Jane is certain she prefers safe, stolid, worthy Mr. Clarence Farley. But the more she disprizes the highly unsuitable comte, the more she feels it her duty -- when his life is threatened by an assassin's pistol -- to help him escape from danger, and into l'amour.