Affairs Of The Heart

Bachelor Guy Beauprey is a childhood friend of Emma Gosselin and her mother. He complains to them that all bachelors are pursued relentlessly by mothers with unattached daughters and thinks the only escape is to fake an engagement.

Portrait painter James Mallory meets the beautiful Flora and asks to paint her. However, he discovers that there's something not quite right about Flora when she grows angry during the sitting.

Uppercrust owner Captain Yule cannot afford to pay off Mr Prodmore's mortgages - what's more, he's a radical MP in London and isn't even sure he wants to. Mr Prodmore offers to write off all the mortgages if Captain Yule will change his political allegiance and marry his daughter Cora.

Mrs Bridgenorth asks artist James Mallory to paint an imaginary portrait. He passes the commission on to his friend Mary Tredick who paints a superb portrait of a man from her past who meant a great deal to her. Mrs Bridgenorth is delighted, though it transpires that she too had known the unnamed man...

Adela is a young woman happily running her father's household and caring for her brother Godfrey and two younger sisters following the death of their mother. The domestic harmony is disrupted when, despite Adela's objections, their father Charles announces he is to marry Mrs Churchley, a widow of means.

Dr Austin Sloper is a wealthy widower who dominates his shy, mousy, only daughter Catherine. When Catherine meets impoverished but handsome Morris Townsend at an engagement party and becomes captivated, Dr Sloper's suspicions are aroused.