Lady Hilary's Halloween

Lady Hilary may be Lord Werrington's oldest child, and his only daughter, but she has felt little of her father's cherishing care or attention. Now, the impoverished earl has decided to marry off Lady Hilary to the very rich but rather commonplace Mr. Brawley -- Werrington will get some much needed cash to augment his almost empty pockets, and Brawley will get an aristocratic wife who will hopefully pave his way into the London ton. The only person unhappy about this turn of events is Lady Hilary, but what can she do with no dowry and no money of her own? Soon, Lady Hilary finds herself on her way to Drake Hall, Brawley's country estate, where she is to spend a month in the country as Mr. Brawley's guest, getting to know her future husband a little better, as well as his forbidding mother and his two obnoxious sisters. Hilary hopes that she will be able to make the best of a bad situation, but her hopes are soon confounded. The Brawley women seem predisposed to dislike her on sight, and her future husband is as commonplace as she remembers. A reprieve arrives unexpectedly in the form of her friend, Lady Lily Carhill. Upon hearing of Hilary's plight, Lily sallies forth to her rescue. She concocts a plan to whisk Hilary away from the Brawleys and takes her to London in order to find Hilary a proper husband. A new haircut, and a few really beautiful gowns later, plain Hilary now looks amazingly elegant, and even has a few admirers of her own. But the one gentleman who disturbs Hilary even as he invades her thoughts and day dreams is Lily's current flirt, Lord Grayden. Hilary doesn't approve of Lily's friendship with Greyden especially because Lily happens to be married, even if her husband is too sick to squire her about town. However she keeps her reservations about Lily's and Greyden's relationship to herself. Hilary is also confused by all the mixed signals Greyden keeps giving her as he alternates between teasing and disapproving of her. But all this pales when Lily begins to become jealous of all the attention that Hilary is garnering, and Hilary is left to wonder how soon it will be before Lily requests that she return to Drake Hall, and if she will be able to come up with an alternative plan to marrying Mr. Brawley before this occurs.I really enjoyed reading "Lady Hilary's Halloween" -- though I'm not sure why Mona Gedney entitled this novel so: the plot had practically nothing to do with Halloween. The plain, intelligent, and compassionate Lady Hilary is quite unlike the usual run of the mill heroine. Lady Hilary is an old fashioned kind of heroine, the sort that was popular about 20 years ago -- older, on the 'shelf,' plainnish yet elegant, kind compassionate and intelligent -- she fights for those that she cares for, and shoulders the burden that is her lot, frequently not of her creation, and for an unappreciative and demanding family. And I must say it was a treat to read a romance novel with this kind of heroine again. (And the fact tha