Boston Tangle — Judith Lown

Boston. It seems like the perfect place for Drusilla Fortesque to escape to after the man she is secretly in love with -- Captain Jack Hatton -- proposes a quickie marriage in a most offhanded, insulting fashion. She refuses him and they part in bitterness, Jack to Russia and Drusilla back to the doldrums of Bath. So is it any wonder that she accepts an invitation to a new world, hoping to forget the only man who ever had her heart. Boston is a new city and a new society, with both revolutionaries and Anglophiles. She settles in nicely with her Aunt Camellia and her beautiful and naïve cousin, Ivy. As she weaves through Boston society, she learns that love in Boston is no less complicated than in London. In fact, with so much unrequited attention and love about, it is hard to know who will end up with whom. So when Sir Clive Brampton asks for Drusilla's hand in marriage, though neither of them loves the other, Drusilla considers it the best choice for her future and accepts.

               Drusilla believes her life to be on course, until Jack Hatton appears in Boston, making a charming impression on the ladies and complicating Drusilla's thoughts and feelings. When he asks for her help in discovering the origins of a mysterious message that could destroy his father's closest American ally, things become a bit . . . tangled. Using her social connections, Drusilla makes discoveries that bring them closer to the perpetrator, and closer to each other. But Drusilla is committed to Sir Clive, and Jack appears to be ready to propose to the most sought after beauty in Boston.  Will Drusilla spend her days as the wife of a man she does not love? Will she return to a stultifying life in Bath? Or dare she hope for a chance at happiness with Jack Hatton? Anything is possible in a new world!