The Quiet Gentleman

Georgette Heyer published The Quiet Gentleman in the opening weeks of 1951, and the story it tells belongs to the spring of 1816, the year after Waterloo.

Gervase Frant, the seventh Earl of St Erth, was estranged from his father as a small boy and brought up by his maternal grandmother, and he then spent years in the army during the Napoleonic Wars. When his father dies he returns to his inheritance in Lincolnshire, the house at Stanyon, to take up his title and his estate.

Waiting for him there are Drusilla Morville, a young friend of his stepmother who is on a long visit, and the rest of the household: his stepmother, his cousin Theo and his half-brother Martin, who is some years younger than he is. Lady St Erth and Martin make no secret of their disappointment that Gervase has survived the war, and the house he inherits is not a peaceful one. Heyer mixes the mystery story in with the romance, so that the book is as much about what is being plotted at Stanyon as about the couple who come together there.