A Countess Below Stairs // The Secret Countess — Eva Ibbotson

DELIGHTFULLY IMPROPER ROMANCE

In the golden days of 1919, the very proper upstairs/downstairs world of Mersham, ancestral home of the very aristocratic Westerholmes, is turned topsy-turvy by the arrival of a totally unsuitable new housemaid...a deliciously unspoiled, but penniless, Russian Countess named Anna, whose gracious world had vanished in the Russian Revolution. With curtsies learned at the Royal Ballet, irrepressible Anna sets out on a most unfamiliar career of scrubbing and scouring -- and wins the heart of butler, cook and Dowager Countess alike.

But disaster is threatening at Mersham. The last Earl of Westerholme, dashing war hero Rupert, has been snared by an unscrupulous blonde heiress. And the sparks that ignite a scandalous attraction between the handsome young master and the pretty new maid promise a broken heart for Anna...or a time of magic and romantic enchantment in a charming story of society and servants, all to the manor born.