At the ripe old age of 70, Lady Fortescue is one of the "genteel poor" of Regency-era London. She's an aristocrat, but by having outlived all ten of her children, as well as her husband, she has a stately London home but no money to her name, selling jewelry, trinkets, and even furniture to remain warm and fed. During a walk in Hyde Park one day (this fashionable occupation still available because there is no charge to take the air in the park), Lady Fortescue stumbles across a similarly poor and hungry aristocrat. As the two get to know each other, they contrive to meet with other "poor relations" to pool their resources and, eventually, run a hotel, with the hopes that their distant relatives will be so shocked to have a relative in trade (the scandal!) that someone will buy out the business and once again set them up for the lives of leisure they once enjoyed.
Having never read M.C. Beaton (or Marion Chesney, as she's referred to here), I expected either romance or mystery, and this was neither. But it was great fun, with plenty of humor at the expense of the high society marriage market. A perfect light read (or listen, as I did with the audiobook) for the weekend.
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