Lanterns

At ""four and twenty and too old to attract a suitor'' in early-19th-century England, Miss Marietta Warrington should be despondent. Now that her mother is dead and her father has gambled away the London townhouse and the rest of his fortune, Marietta seems destined for spinsterhood unless she can find a suitable mate in the isolated countryside where the family has taken refuge at an abandoned estate called Lanterns. But Marietta's spirit is intact. A quirky beauty with a quick wit, she is the heart of a family that includes a mischievous little brother and a treacherous older one, a doting sister and a wonderfully eccentric aunt. Naturally enough, Marietta sets pulses racing in every man who finds his way to the Warrington's modest digs, from the slick Blake Coville to the rich Innis Willard and the brooding, intriguing magnet for violence who calls himself Mallory Diccon. Though Marietta is attracted to Diccon, she becomes aware that he may be a traitor to the Crown. Veryan (The Sanguinet Saga, a Regency romance series) deftly balances romance, mystery, comedy and--with special poignancy--the conflict Marietta must face, torn between love of country and love of a dashing man. (Oct.)