Madeline Prescott is a very intelligent, scholarly female with a particular genius in mathematics and an interest in natural science - what we call now biology. She is currently teaching at Mrs. Harris's school because she and her father had to leave their home in Shropshire. He is a doctor and a recent patient died of an abscessed tooth after he gave her nitrous oxide as an anesthetic. The local baronet, Sir Randolph Bickham, being an extremely nasty sort, was threatening to have him charged with murder. Dr. Prescott has always suffered from "melancholia" and since the woman's death, he has been so depressed that Madeline fears he may commit suicide.
Lord Anthony Dalton, Viscount Norcourt, is the nephew of Sir Randolph and has first hand knowledge of just how nasty he and his wife are. After Anthony's mother died when he was 8, his father sent him to live with the Bickhams. They physically and mentally abused him and his younger cousin for years.
Now Anthony's older brother has died, leaving guardianship of his daughter to Sir Randolph. Anthony is determined to get guardianship himself and save Tessa from their evil. The only problem is that Anthony has deliberately lived a rakehell lifestyle. So he must convince the courts that he can be responsible for a young girl's welfare, and his first step is to get her admitted as a student to Mrs. Harris's prestigious school.
Madeline is sympathetic to his pleas, but even more, she sees him as a solution to her father's problems. But she doesn't dare tell him the whole truth.
The wounded hero is a favorite trope of many romance authors, but Ms. Jeffries endows them with REAL wounds, not just plot device placeholders. Anthony's background is genuinely moving, not least because such abuse happens all too often even today.
And her heroines are smart and strong and feisty, yet behave with manners and sensibilities that are not anachronistic to the 19th century. Madeline is the typical bluestocking - which happens to be one of my favorite tropes.
While this series is called the School for Heiresses, the first 3 books had almost no scenes actually in the school setting. This one is different, with a great deal of it taking place in the school and it's classrooms. The scenes where Anthony gives "rakehell lessons" are really humorous.
4 stars.