Lady Fortescue steps out Book

3.5 stars.

I've become addicted to Marion Chesney's regency tales ! There's usually a love story but also an engaging ensemble cast of other characters who have their own wacky drama going on. This novel is the first in The Poor Relation Collection. I'm drawn to Marion Chesney's sense of humour and the way she creates conflict but then solves it in a rather slapdash or slapstick sort of way. Her style of writing is light, the pacing is good and the storytelling is always entertaining. The Poor Relations series deals with a group of impoverished genteel folks who have banded together to form a hotel: yep ! they've done the unthinkable and gone into Trade ! It's a common fact that members of the English Ton despised anyone who belonged to the new merchant/industrial class and so the ensemble poor relations in this series have entered a no man's land that's guaranteed to alienate them from their richer relatives. The poor relations didn't want to open the hotel but they were starving, down on their luck and their rich genteel relatives weren't helping them out:

The poor relations of aristocrats who lived in London led a lonely and dreary existence, living on the charity of their noble relatives; or on some meagre allowance from a family trust. Once a year, they were taken out and dusted down and conveyed to some stately home where they made themselves as inconspicuous as possible, hoping to be ignored, hoping that regular meals and fires would last as long as possible. But the day would always come when they were packed up and delivered back to London and a life of genteel cold and hunger. What kept them from helping each other, what kept them apart, was pride.

Marion Chesney; M. C. Beaton. Lady Fortescue Steps Out (Kindle Locations 29-33). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.

In this first installment, we meet the septuagenarian Lady Fortescue:



Poor Lady F is the epitome of genteel poverty. She's a widow without kids and her only valuable possession is her huge townhouse on Bond Street. She's so poor that she can't even afford to pay the wages of her married servants John and Betty; they stay and share whatever little she has because they like her and they've nowhere else to go. At the start of the story, Lady F is weak and disillusioned because her poverty had made her steal 2 silver candlesticks from the home of her nephew the Duke of Rowcester. Lady F's theft was discovered and she had to depart from the duke's estate in disgrace. She's walking all by herself in Hyde Park and looking enviously at the rich members of the Ton, as they parade in their phaetons and barouches, when she comes across an old man who has collapsed on the grass. He's Colonel Sandhurt ( also in his '70's )



Lady F and Colonel S join forces and decide that they should pool their resources and live together at her house on Bond Street. It's not a romantic relationship, but there are hints that the Colonel is enamoured of Lady F. Soon, they devise a crafty idea to get more folks in the same socio-economic situation and they're joined by Miss Tonks ( a plain spinster in her 40's whose old sister stole her inheritance ), Mrs. Eliza Budley ( a pretty 32 yr old widow whose husband was a gambler that left her impoverished ), Miss Harriet James ( a beautiful 28 yr old spinster who is the romantic heroine of the story ) and Sir Phillip Sommerville ( a mean, con artist, loud mouth, unhygienic and crafty bachelor in his '70's ). It's Sir Phillip who devises the idea to turn Lady F's townhouse into a hotel. Sir Phillip is an ornery old thief but he is the most entertaining character in this series ! This is Sir Phillip:



The poor relations furnish the hotel with the furniture from Mrs. Budley's old home but are still in need of funds to refurbish the place, so the wily Sir P engineers a scheme whereby they each take turns visiting their hateful relatives in order to steal some valuable stuff than can then be sold. Sir P is the first to go on his thieving expedition and he turns up to the duke of Rowcester's estate; it so happens that Sir P is a distant relative of the duke. The duke is a bachelor in his 30's who has only been smitten with one woman in his entire life; she happens to be none other than Harriet James. The duke had tried to look for Harriet but is unaware that she had fallen into dire poverty. Harriet and the duke are the 2 characters whose relationship will form the basis of the sole romantic storyline in this novel. This is the Duke of Rowcester:



This is Harriet:



Sir P steals some stuff from the duke's attics, a valuable antique necklace and he cries and begs his nephew Tommy for a crystal chandelier. The poor relations also decide to use Harriet's awesome cooking skills to their advantage by making her the chef for their new hotel. In a funny turn of events, they end up naming the hotel "The Poor Relation Hotel" since it represents all of them. Soon, the duke reads about the hotel and is angry because he thinks his aunt is embarrassing him and the family name by getting involved in trade. He turns up at the fully booked hotel and offers his huge townhouse to a family he knows that's staying there in exchange for their suite. The plot starts to get wackier from this point onwards ! The duke sees Harriet again and he is once more falling in love, but he asks her to be his mistress since he can't marry a woman who is in trade. Harriet is still in love with him but his offer offends her so she refuses. The author also pokes a lot of fun at how many members of the Ton are so stupid, egotistical and unhygienic. She does this via a character called Susan, Lady Darkwood:


Susan was a tall, statuesque blonde with a fair skin only slightly pitted by the smallpox, and large square brownish teeth.

Marion Chesney; M. C. Beaton. Lady Fortescue Steps Out (Kindle Locations 1026-1027). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.

Susan is a snob who hates to bathe but ends up having a dentist pull out all her brown teeth and replacing them with teeth from corpses:


But no sooner had Harriet begun to relax than Susan arrived, her large eyes gleaming with excitement and lips parted over white teeth. "Do you like them?" she said, tapping her teeth with the end of her fan. "They're real."

"Not your own, Susan?"

"No, my own were such a dreadful colour that I had them all pulled out and got this lovely, lovely set."

"Oh, Susan, do you never think where they came from?"

Marion Chesney; M. C. Beaton. Lady Fortescue Steps Out (Kindle Locations 2053-2057). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.


Harriet gives the duke quite a run for his money because he keeps chasing after her all the time. He even forgets that he wants to close down the hotel and he buys her a brand new large stove, because he feels sorry for her having to slave over the archaic contraption in the hotel's kitchen. Sir P provided a lot of drama with his thieving ways when he used the insurance money to buy fancy clothing and a new wig for himself. Harriet almost dies in a fire but the duke climbed up the drainpipe and saved her. There was also a wannabe OW called Lady Stanton who wanted the duke for herself and tried to embarrass poor Harriet, but all ends well for the 2 lovers because the duke asks Harriet to marry him. The story ends on a happy note for Harriet and her duke, but the other poor relations are left to plot and scheme again because the attic fire has left them in need of more funds. The duke had paid for the refurbishment but they were still not making a huge profit. That will form the basis for the storyline of the second installment Miss Tonks Turns to Crime.