The Adventuress by M.C. Beaton

WARNING!!! SOME SPOILERS TO THE END OF THIS POST!

Beauty is a powerful magnet, and every man in the ton is drawn to the exquisite loveliness of Miss Emily Goodenough, who has rented the Clarges Street house with her rather peculiar old uncle. Only Rainbird, the butler, suspects that Miss Goodenough's origins might be less than genteel--in fact, that the beauteous Emily may be a runaway chambermaid and her "uncle" a fellow butler! But Emily has fallen desperately in love with the handsome, haughty Earl of Fleetwood, and since the bogus upstairs couple quickly wins the downstairs' servants' hearts... Rainbird and his friends are determined to make a lowly maid the catch of the Season for high society's most desirable Lord!

Very nearly at the end of the series now.

The Lovers
Emily spends the book as a nervous wreck, frightened that everyone would discover that she was an ex-servant and not a proper lady. The paranoia was realistic and not as annoying as I thought it would be from the beginning.

She is very headstrong and she has a goal in mind as is determined to achieve it. And with the help of the staff she goes from being a nobody to a somebody thanks to them spreading gossip to get society interested in her.

I found Fleetwood a bit annoying with his constant complaining about the servant class. Because he had a bad experience with his own servants when his wife was murders he tarred them all with the same brush and now can't stand them. This of course leads to plenty of internal conflict for Emily.

Fleetwood had also written a book that is about a servant girl hat sends Emily into a tizzy and has her jumping at her own shadow thinking someone based the book off of her.

What I did enjoy about this book was that it went past the wedding day, that made a nice change.

The Staff
I had my second 'Oh Lizzie'moment in this as she fancies herself in love with next doors footman after a bit of flattering from him and trusts him with the servants savings...

I still love her to bits though and she does meet a nice stranger in this so I can't wait to see where that leads too.

All in All
One of the more enjoyable of the series with a likeable heroine (even if I did want to shake her a couple of times).