Deborah Goes to Dover: Being the 5th Vol. of the Traveling Matchmaker

In another of her lighthearted Regency romps, Chesney follows Hannah Pym on her fifth adventure in the Travelling Matchmaker series that started with Emily Goes to Brighton . During a coach trip to Dover, the intrepid Miss Pym encounters the hoydenish Lady Deborah Western, who, dressed as a boy, is being escorted to a prizefight by her scapegrace twin brother, Lord William. While trying to keep her footman, Benjamin Stubbs, from taking part in a boxing match to recover his gaming losses, Miss Pym gives Lady Deborah some social protection after she is revealed as a female. When the earl of Ashton, an old friend of the Westerns' father, tries to exert some control over the twins, Miss Pym scents the potential for a match, the second she is maneuvering on the trip, the first involving her coach companions Abigail Conningham, traveling with her mother to a loveless marriage arranged by an uncle, and Capt. Beltravers, an Army officer still mourning his dead wife and child. Lady Deborah's transition to womanhood and the reappearance of an old enemy of Miss Pym's liven up the proceedings before all ends well. As always, Chesney's story is frothily entertaining. (Mar)