To save her family from financial ruin, Miss Poppy Garrison accepts an unusual proposition to participate in the New York social season in exchange for her grandmother settling a family loan that has unexpectedly come due. Ill-equipped to handle the intricacies of mingling within the New York Four Hundred, Poppy becomes embroiled in one hilarious fiasco after another, doomed to suffer a grand societal failure instead of being deemed the diamond of the first water her grandmother longs for her to become.

Reginald Blackburn, second son of a duke, has been forced to travel to America to help his cousin, Charles Wynn, Earl of Lonsdale, find an American heiress to wed in order to shore up his family estate that is in desperate need of funds. Reginald himself has no interest in finding an heiress to marry, but when Poppy’s grandmother asks him to give etiquette lessons to Poppy, he swiftly discovers he may be in for much more than he bargained for.

Excerpt

Reginald watched as Miss Garrison picked up her tongs, squeezed the handle a few times, then aimed them toward the snails on her plate. She then went about what was apparently the tricky business of trying to pick one of them up.

“Would you look at that, captured at last,” she finally said, her eyes twinkling as she considered the snail she’d managed to catch. She turned the tongs side to side before she gave them a small shake. “They do seem to hold fast to the shell.”

Reaching for the small fork next to her plate, she picked it up and began looking rather determined. Before she could wield the fork, though, she, for some unknown reason, gave the tongs another flick right as she seemed to squeeze the handle.

Reginald winced as he watched the snail suddenly go hurtling through the air, over the table, and then . . .

Everyone at the table seemed to hold their breath as the snail continued its flight right before it smacked some poor gentleman in the back of the head. Splatters of snail flew from the shell, gasps rang out from numerous guests, and then utter silence descended.

As if in slow motion, the gentleman turned in his chair. Two servers rushed forward, one scrambling after the shell that was now rolling over the floor, while the other began plucking snail out of the gentleman’s hair. A moment later, the servers retreated, leaving the gentleman leveling a glare on Reginald’s table, or more specifically, Miss Garrison, who was turning a lovely shade of pink.