194. The Magnificent Marriage

Young Lady Lettice Burne is outstandingly beautiful with fair hair like sunshine and a flawless pink-and-white complexion. Yet her father, the Earl of Alderburne, desperate to find a wealthy suitor for her to pay off his mountain of accumulated debts, is resigned to the fact that she is immature and empty-headed and therefore unlikely to make the brilliant marriage that he had envisaged for her. So, when the handsome, dashing and rich Maximus Kirby expresses interest in her hand, the Earl is eager to send her to join him in Singapore. Maximus Kirby has been hugely successful in the Far East in trading and has started many profitable businesses that have brought unexpected prosperity to many poor communities. Lettice cannot possibly go to him in Singapore alone. So her sister Lady Dorinda goes, posing as her companion – albeit reluctantly, knowing that she is assuming her usual guise of ‘ugly sister’ thanks to the disfiguring eczema on her face and body that she has suffered from since childhood. To Dorinda’s delight and astonishment the tropical climate miraculously cures her skin complaint and now everybody can see that she is every bit as beautiful as Lettice, including Maximus Kirby. Once in Singapore Dorinda and Lettice face great dangers which Maximus Kirby and Dorinda have to defeat and Lettice becomes more and more determined that she will not marry Maximus Kirby. And will Lady Dorinda finally find the love and the ‘Magnificent Marriage’ that her disease has always denied her?