The Nonesuch
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First published in the UK by William Heinemann 1962
First published by Arrow Books 2005
This edition reissued by Arrow Books 2021 001
Copyright © Georgette Heyer, 1962
Initial lettering copyright © Stephen Raw, 2004
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This is a work of fiction. All characters and descriptions of events are the products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN: 978–0–099–47438–8
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‘I am the heir.’
neither the most senior of his relations nor the one who bore his name!
Spasms when she had first heard the incredible news. As it was, she had been unable to speak for a full minute; and when she did thing to do. One would have thought—However, none of us had
dooce do you —Oh!’ He broke off, laughing, and said
is it? What ought to be mine is to be squandered on the scaff and ‘You – you—By God, you make me sick!’ Laurence said,
although he would have repudiated with indignation any suggestion that he was not very well able to provide for his
‘Well, of all the abominable injustices –! I didn’t prattle about
horrible squeeze to another; doing the pretty to people I’d as lief
Lindeth, and added: ‘Oh, Mama, you don’t object! Do you, Mama?’
Aveburys’ Dress-party, and—However, if you prefer to go to
His ideas might not coincide with hers; she might resent Julian’s
As he turned away from her, Julian, whose attention had been
a stuffy chaise for—Oh, you’re trying to gammon me, are you?
Laurence –! Upon my word, Waldo, I wonder that you should Waldo, you’re a—you’re a—’
‘Oh, come now, Waldo –’ George protested, adding after a
independence
‘His promise –! Good God, Waldo, you don’t depend on that, to have left his property to you—By the bye, my aunt didn’t like
Mrs Underhill, who knew no more of Sir Waldo than the Rector’s most illiterate parishioner, but understood, from the awe in Miss Chartley’s face, that the news was remarkable, said, in a placid voice: ‘Fancy!’ Miss Charlotte, a bouncing fifteen-
picture, she could change in the twinkling of an eye from an engagingly affectionate child into a positive termagant. Mrs Underhill surrendered her without protest, saying that Mrs Burford little knew what she had undertaken.
the grave, he would be so obliging as to send his niece back to Yorkshire. Not only was she so lost to all sense of propriety as to escape from the house when she was believed to be in bed and asleep, and to attend a masquerade at Vauxhall Gardens,