Rosalinda's Revenge — Maureen Mackey

On her wedding day Lady Rosalinda discovers her groom, Lord Harry Montague, has cried off, sending his best friend Simon Phelps to break the news to the jilted bride. The Duchess of Wallingford, Rosalinda's iron-willed mother, decides Phelps will make a suitable last-minute replacement. The Duchess hastily concocts a fiction for the wedding guests that Simon was Rosalinda's intended all along, with Lord Harry pretending to be the groom as an elaborate prank. When a drunken Lord Harry loudly proclaims his relief throughout London at his narrow escape from the parson's mousetrap, casting doubt on the Duchess's carefully-contrived cover story for her daughter's wedding, the only way Rosalinda can see to avoid the effects of the scandal is to accompany her diplomat husband on his mission to America. She bravely embarks on her new life, but privately vows revenge against the perfidious Lord Harry. While in Boston Rosalinda matures beyond the indulged daughter and belle of the Beau Monde she was once into a thoughtful woman, and she learns to love the earnest and dependable Simon. Some well-timed advice from fellow Bostonian Abigail Adams helps, too, as does the maid Abigail recommends. Rosalinda becomes quite content with her new life, and writes to her mother to tell her about the good works she is doing in Boston-teaching Indian children, and participating in a local sewing circle. The aristocratic Duchess is appalled, even more so when she learns Rosalinda is pregnant and will give birth in what the Duchess considers a barely-civilized land. Rosalinda and Simon have a baby in Boston, and for a while it is smooth sailing for the young couple. Than two disasters happen: Lord Harry comes to Boston, at the behest of the Duchess, to bring Rosalinda home, and war breaks out between the United States and England. Rosalinda gets a further shock when she hears that Simon's Washington-to-Boston packet ship was sunk, with no survivors. Before he left, Simon made her promise