LOVE, LORDS, AND LADY-BIRDS

Spunky young orphan heiress Petrina Lyndon climbs over the wall of her school to run away to London and become a ""lady-bird"" (i.e. hooker). Since we are in Cart-land rather than anything approaching authentic 1819 England, the man she hitches a ride with turns out to be her longlost guardian, the handsome, if rather stuffy, Earl of Staverton. In no time Petrina has made her debut in London society under his aegis and is besieged by fops. Petrina's spats with her guardian make eventual wedding bells a certainty; en route, she foils a blackmailer, is nearly raped, disposes of the Earl's two mistresses by various tricks, an shows an unladylike interest in helping juvenile ""lady-birds,"" once she has found out what they are. More bouncy than other recent productions from the queen of Regency blah.