Arabella

Georgette Heyer's Arabella came out in 1949, and its story belongs to the spring of 1817.

Its heroine is Arabella, the daughter of a country clergyman and a great beauty, who sets out for a London season in the hope of a good match. On the way her carriage is involved in an accident and she has to stop at the hunting box of Robert Beaumaris, a leader of fashion and one of the richest men in the country, who suspects that the whole thing is a trick by someone chasing his fortune.

Arabella overhears him saying so, and on an impulse tells him that she is an heiress. He knows perfectly well that she is not, but he is amused by her nerve and by the character behind it, and he stays in her company through the season that follows. The book is a comedy of manners about a young woman with a small dowry and a firm sense of her own worth, moving among people who are all watching the marriage market and counting fortunes.