Friendship Series by Julia Donner

Gordon Treadwell thought himself too long in the tooth to get mixed up in a social disaster of epic proportions. In his cups, he makes a preposterous wager, which his stickler father decrees must be honored. The problem is that it involves a prickly and headstrong spinster sitting on a possible scandal of her own. Oil and water, flame and grease, no matter how you describe this pair, things are about to ignite.

Society’s beloved wastrel, Sir Harry Collyns, pushes his popularity past the point of acceptability when he posed for a statue that creates a social uproar. People line up for blocks to see Handsome Harry in the nude, sculpted by a female artist! Bored with the fuss and scandal, Harry hitches up his fastest team, heads for the country, and a near fatal curricle accident... moreSociety’s beloved wastrel, Sir Harry Collyns, pushes his popularity past the point of acceptability when he posed for a statue that creates a social uproar. People line up for blocks to see Handsome Harry in the nude, sculpted by a female artist! Bored with the fuss and scandal, Harry hitches up his fastest team, heads for the country, and a near fatal curricle accident. When the bandages are removed from his head days later, he discovers the angel-voiced widow who’d cared for him is neither elderly nor as mild as her tone, but a straight-laced do-gooder unimpressed with his flamboyant past and dashing good looks. Head-battered and heading for a broken heart, he falls into love with Widow Olivia St. Clair, who might be the one woman in England that Harry can’t charm into loving him back. less