Synopsis

Lady Susan Vernon, “four months a widow” and her unloved teenage daughter Frederica have been staying at Langford, home of her friends, the Manwarings. Whilst there, Lady Susan has managed to conduct an affair with Mr Manwaring as well as break up the relationship of his spinster sister, Maria, and the buffoonish, but wealthy baronet, Sir James Martin.

Obliged to leave Langford and with nowhere else to go, she accepts an invitation from her previously estranged brother-in-law, Charles Vernon, and his wife Catherine, to stay with them at their country home, Churchill, in Kent.  Frederica meanwhile is sent to boarding school until she agrees to marry the unattractive and much older Sir James for his money, thereby enabling her mother to marry for love.

But Lady Susan’s cunningly constructed plans begin to go awry when Frederica runs away from school and Sir James turns up unexpectedly on the Churchill doorstep. With the help of her best friend Alicia, Lady Susan escapes to London, only to find herself resorting to hilariously desperate measures when her complicated love life begins to unravel.

Characters