THE AUTUMN ROSE

Headstrong, outspoken, sparkling Lady Caro Wythe, being 23 years old and dying on the vine, is sent to Georgian London to catch a husband, though she has no desire for one. Her marriage consultant, dowager Lady Beatrice, says that with her looks (skinny) and advanced age, she had best cultivate a reputation for eccentricity. So Caro dutifully smokes cigars, wears only the color rose, and gives her naturally sharp tongue free rein. All this--plus her rash temper--gets her involved in a brouhaha with caddish Lord Mockabee, who sinks so far as to lampoon her in the public press. But this is nothing to what Mockabee plans for Caro's housemate and companion, silly and malicious Amy Meredith, who is a trial to her guardian, handsome Lord Seabury, in whose home the two girls will have their ""come-out."" Caro finds Seabury gorgeous but glacial, and, worse, he seems to be engaged to the most boring woman in England. Add to this crew an elderly compulsive gambler and two comic chaperones (one of whom unpicks the other's embroidery after-hours), and you have the ideal dramatis personae for a Georgette Heyerish bit of flummery--with considerably more wit and pizazz than the legendary Georgette herself.