HaBO: Better Courtship Through Science!

You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!

This request is from Queeny, who remembers so much detail, I'm certain one of you will identify this book almost immediately. 

I read this book when I was at the impressionable age of 13, stolen from my mother's collection (also because I was at that stage where I had done reading all the books I owned, so I was getting experimental and conducting raids on my parents' libraries (romance and sci-fi/mystery, respectively).

Unfortunately, I can't even tell you what the cover looked like or who published it, because this was the Portuguese edition, and part of an exclusive by a publishing house who hired a painter to come up with fully new covers for all of the hardback books in the collection.

I am sure it was not by Victoria Holt (who became my favourite raid target), because when my mother passed away, I kept all her Holt books and gave all the others, forgetting this little gem. Unfortunately, my Google-Fu has failed me, so I turn to the Bitchery to help me.  

I am fairly sure this is a Regency (keep in mind, I was a teen at the time, and, to me, the 19th to 21st century period was the “old days” with no distinction, so it might also be Victorian), because I'm almost sure there is a reference to Almacks and needing getting permission to waltz at the ball. I don't remember dress descriptions because clothes-porn wasn't my thing at the time (jeans and flannel shirt was my idea of “proper attire”).

The story follows our violet-eyed heroine, who lost her parents to a severe bout of death, and now is being raised by two doting aunts, who are quite modern-thinking and scientific in their approach of finding husbands (more on that in a moment). She is part of a group of four friends, who have different tastes but get along very well. I'm almost sure one of them is called Fiona and she is an expert rider and loves horses. I don't remember anything about the other friends (maybe they are three?) except one of them is cousin (sister?) to the smouldering and intense and tight-trouser-wearing hero. Who has, obviously, a “reputation” (of being smouldering and intense and wearing tight trousers, and also being a bit of a rogue who sleeps around). He also has a courtesanlover who looks like the lost twin sister of the heroine, except her eyes are not speshul enough as they are a very common blue (sneer) and not a lovely, exquisite violet. She apparently is also quite fond of gaudy jewellery, and is not happy with a delicate piece SmoulderIntense brings her one day, although she disguises it very badly (letting him reflect that he knew his mistress liked the bling, so why did he go for something refine and understated? Oh no, it's that pesky heroine who is for, some reason, constantly in his mind, damn her!

So the aunts believe less in marrying for money and more in marrying someone you'll get along with and be happy. They come up with the scientific method of creating a database (ie. list) of all the eligible bachelors in London, their likes and dislikes, and cross-referencing them with the likes and dislikes of the heroine and their friends. This allows them to come up with a list of a few adequate love interests for each girl.

The girls decided to reveal their lists at the same time and to each other, during a meeting at the Related-to-SmoulderIntense 's library — meetings that they will continue to have every week to compare notes and results. Guess who is at the top of the Heroine's list? It's Lord SmoulderIntense, of course! The Heroine immediately goes “No, sorry, my aunts are just being funny, Lord SmoulderIntense would never work for me, he's a cad– yadda yadda yadda — let's see who is number two.”

And they all proceed to meet their prospects. Fiona immediately falls for her guy (he loves riding!) and everyone else is getting along with their first choices wonderfully, praising how SCIENCE!! made their world a better place (okay, maybe I am imagining that last bit). But not our Heroine. All the guys in her list turn out to be douchebags, too bold, addicted to gambling, show shifts in behaviour without explanation, etc. — showing all the faults she hated in menfolk. Our Heroine runs through the list and finds fault with all of them, and now dramatically believes she is doomed to be a spinster, because if SCIENCE!! can't help her, nobody can.

The great reveal comes when the Heroine is at Related-to-SmoulderIntense's house, and her butler makes some remark about how Lord SmoulderIntense can't make it to their usual meeting in the library today. She asks for explanations, and it turns out that the butler thought he was hanging out with the girls, since he would always come in early and go into the library at the meeting days. So, he basically listened in EVERY of the meetings, from a hiding place (a couch or something?).

The Heroine is now realizing that he sabotaged her efforts because he hates her and got prissy she called him a cad (the truth was, rather, he was just angry she wouldn't choose him because he was into her and totally jealous!) so she starts a gossip war against him, and things escalate until they explode at the opera, when Lord SmoulderIntense abducts her, runs with her to his phaeton, they have words, and then they have kisses. All is explained, apologies are made all around, and the hero returns her to her aunts along with the promise he is going to make an honest woman out of her and marry her.

That is all I can remember from the book, and even though I did my best to use the keywords to find the book, I simply couldn't anything that matched this description. Help me, bitchery! You are my only hope!

I choked on my water at the “severe bout of death” and snorted the rest of the way through this HaBO. Thank you, Queeny! Do you recognize this book?