SOLVED. Looking for Regency Romance series with four friends, a tinker, tailor, sailor and spy. [s]

[Heather]

The male character is aristocracy, maybe a viscount, his father is a unsuccessful gambler, an Earl, I believe. The family has always been on the edge of ruin thanks to the gambling. The viscount (since I can't remember his name, we'll go with that), is the spy of his group of friends and works for the Home Office during the war. It opens with him in Scotland on a job, and he runs across a woman in a hotel room who was just married via elopement, or is about to, but the husband/prospective husband has abandoned her. The viscount ends up entering her room through a window when she's sleeping and he's trying to get away from someone.

When he gets home, he learns that the absentee husband was using the Viscount's alias. The woman's father, who has earned a bundle in shipping, tracks him down via the alias and threatens to expose it to everyone if he doesn't marry his daughter, whose reputation is now in tatters. In exchange the viscount will get enough money to make him rich, and enable his family to eat and his brothers to go to school. The bride's knowledge of shipping eventually enables them to solve the case he's been working on.

I read this whole series via audiobook somewhere between 2008 and 2010 via my state library system, so it was probably reasonable new at the time. I've spent hours today looking up regency authors whose names are familiar trying to track down the series, so any help would be very welcome!

[Heather]

Found it! Free Fellows League by Rebecca Hagan Lee.

[Rudi]

I’m so glad you remembered it! This series sounds great!!

[Kris]

Glad you found your book, Rudi. Here's link for the Heather's find - the first book Barely a Bride by Rebecca Hagan Lee.