Plaidy's fabulous Georgian series continues with the courtship of Maria Fitzherbert ...

The day the Prince of Wales set eyes on Maria Fitzherbert on the towpath at Richmond, she was twice widowed and eminently appealing. The Prince was in love. The more she resisted him, the more determined he became.

The courtship of Mrs Fitzherbert, set against the backgrounds of the Brighton Pavillion, the court at Windsor and Carlton House, was to bring betrayal, scandal and the downfall of one of the greatest politicians of the day.

It is a story full of the elegance and arrantry of the close of the eighteenth century, peopled with characters like the wily Charles James Fox, the coy Fanny Burney, and old George III, slowly descending into madness, while the balladmongers sang...