Adam Lane's Novels, Brief summaries of 'Adam's' work.

[Geoffrey Stapleton [Shar]]

Title: May Yet Be Found
Plot: A handsome young woman named Elizabeth Demersley was devastated years ago when her naval officer fiance, Richard Thorpe, was lost at sea. She has remained faithful to his memory ever since, but her strength is tested when family friends take in a man in poor health who has no memory and a certain resemblance to her lost love. As he recovers, they fall in love, and his memories slowly begin to return. They make it seem more and more likely that he is indeed Thorpe, as he was a naval officer, served on the same ship, and had some of the same goals. However, the man slowly comes to realize that in fact he is not the fiance, but the fiance's friend Andrew Higgins. He conceals this fact, since he loves the woman and hopes to marry her.
Finally, Higgins' memory recovers completely and he realizes that Thorpe is still alive, living abroad. He leaves town without warning, and returns some time later with the young man.
As the book closes, the long-awaited wedding has taken place at last, and Higgins congratulates bride and groom, concealing his own sadness, and preparing to venture into life alone.

[Geoffrey Stapleton [Shar]]

Title: O, What Tangled Webs
Plot: Miss Madeleine Oakton, youngest child of an ailing widower, has accompanied her father to Bath in the hopes of improving his health. Their staff in Bath is small, and so when it occurs to Madeleine that small trinkets and bits of silver are getting lost a little too frequently, it is not difficult to pin the blame on the household's maid, who has served them for many years--in the past, honestly.
Considerate of her father's health, Miss Oakton asks his much younger friend, the wealthy Baronet William Lewis, who has been spending a great deal of time with them recently, for advice before confronting the sticky-fingered servant. He retires to his own home to think the matter through, but in the several days before he returns, Madeleine begins to find a few of the trinkets and bits of silver. In horror that she would have falsely accused the maid, who has had a difficult life already as a widow raising a son, she apologizes to the baronet and asks him to drop the whole thing.
Slowly, Miss Oakton comes to imagine that perhaps her father's company is not the only one the baronet is seeking out. The more likely it seems, the more she is herself drawn to him, and love blossoms between them.
All of this is brought to a halt when a lady confides, in a call upon the Oakton home, that rumors suggest the baronet is passing money to the maid. Madeleine begins to think, and to worry. Though the maid claims to be a widow, she rarely speaks of her husband and was already widowed when she came to work for them. Her son was a small child when she arrived at the Oakton household and--well, it is all too easy to imagine reasons the baronet might be supporting them!
Madeleine confronts the baronet with her fears, and he responds angrily. She asks him to swear to her of his innocence in the matter, and he refuses, insisting that if she cannot trust him in this, she will never trust him in anything. They part on bad terms.
A few days later, still heavy-hearted, Madeleine sends for the maid to dismiss her. There is a terrible scene, with the maid sobbing and begging to be kept on, and finally the terrible admission: she had, in fact, been stealing the family's precious goods. Her own father has become ill recently, and she cannot support herself, her son and her father on her maid's salary. She had been selling them to help out, feeling terribly guilty but nonetheless having to do it. The baronet had torn the story from her, had found out the name of the shop she'd been selling the thing to and bought them back. Since then, he has been giving her small sums of money to purchase medicines, doctors' visits, and special foods for the sick man, so she isn't tempted to steal. His behavior in every respect has been honorable, and by the way, her son is most assuredly her poor late husband's child.
Her faith in the baronet restored, Miss Oakton sends him her apologies and they are reconciled. The maid is allowed to remain in the baronet's household, at a higher salary and on the condition that she will be dismissed immediately if ever anything goes missing.
Soon after, the banns are published: Miss Madeleine Oakton and Baronet William Lewis are to be married.

[Geoffrey Stapleton [Shar]]

Title: Music and Merit
Summary: Augusta Fielding is a gentlewoman in every sense of the term but one. Honorable, diligent and trustworthy, she is nonetheless without the funds that make those virtues so valued by society, her family having lost nearly everything in bad investments (and possibly in a bit of excess on the part of certain family members, though that is not discussed openly). Her only escape is into music, but that, sadly, remains an escape only briefly, for she finds herself reduced to teaching music to members of the class to which she herself deserves to belong.
Among her students, Miss Fielding finds herself very much at ease with one young woman, Adrianna Blythe, and they become fast friends. To her she speaks of her own disappointments; to her she bemoans her fate; to her she expresses her distress at having to work with some of her other clients, including a family by the name of Goddard, whose vulgarity often drives her nearly to tears. Aside from that, all the Goddard daughters are entirely tone-deaf and incapable of keeping rhythm if a hammer was pounding the windowpane in the exact right time. It is a wonder to both Miss Fielding and Miss Blythe that Miss Fielding has survived such indignities as long as she has, but survive them she must: the Goddards have a great number of daughters and a great number of friends. With Miss Blythe's encouragement, Miss Fielding does her best to remain patient and cheerful with them.
With much trepidation, Miss Fielding agrees to play piano at a party the Goddards give to a number of these friends, hoping that some of them will be more genteel than the hosts. Some are; some are not; and one young man sits in the corner across from the piano and stares at her the entire evening. Miss Blythe, present as a guest, does some research and finds that the young man is a cousin of the Goddards and very proud; no woman is ever good enough for him.
With that knowledge, Miss Fielding decides that Mr. Goddard was simply cataloguing her faults in his mind and resolves to think no more of him. When a selection of new and beautiful sheet music, perfect for her manner of playing, arrives at her home from an anonymous donor, she accepts it as a handsome note of gratitude from her employers and is surprised by their kindness and discretion.
Miss Fielding begins to find Mr. Goddard at his cousins' house during her lessons frequently and wonders what has happened to his supposed taste. How can he bear the company of this awful family, and how can he remain in earshot of this awful playing? Certainly he always seems in a terrible mood when present. Miss Blythe has no suggestion to make but a foolish one, that Mr. Goddard is somehow drawn to Miss Fielding herself. Ridiculous.
When he begins to argue with her about the timing of one of the pieces the Goddards had sent her, she becomes quite irritated with the whole situation. As she tells Miss Blythe at their lesson later, she has no intention of forcing herself into his attention, so why must he always seek her out? Miss Blythe merely smiles and begins to play, consumed by her own first romance.
At last Mr. Goddard's attentions do what his cousins' behavior never managed, and she eplains to her students' mother that there is little purpose in continuing their lessons. A scene ensues, which ends in Miss Fielding leaving the house in high dudgeon, knowing that she may well have wrecked her career. To her surprise, a carriage draws up next to her, and Mr. Goddard offers to return her home. With no graceful way to refuse, she accepts. Silence reigns in the carriage for at least half of the way home, until finally he compliments her on her patience in working with his cousins so long. She confronts him regarding his own behavior, and he admits that he had indulged in the visits simply in order to find the imperfection in her character that would free him from her spell. The only one he had found was in her forbearance for the vulgar Goddards. Now that this forbearance is gone, he must proclaim his admiration.
Much distress ensues as Miss Fielding must decide whether or not she admires him in return, having felt only irritation for him in the past. However, eventually she forgives him his fascination with her, and their romance proceeds apace, halted only once, briefly, by his family's disapproval--they've heard terrible things about her from their cousins! A word from Miss Blythe's family sets that concern to rest, however, and Miss Fielding's suffering is at last rewarded by true love and marriage to a man who will see that she never suffers a lack again.