Marina Linwood had a promising future as a designer, but when her grandfather died she had to leave art school to take over his antique business to support her grandma, who is not her favorite person. She is sorely tempted when her older married friend hosts her favorite designer idol, James Sebastian, for tea and he later offers her a job as he is so impressed with what she'd done with her friend's living room, but she cannot leave her grandma. Two years later, she is 22 and her grandma is dead so she calls on him in London to take him up on the offer. He accepts her and things go well, but when he takes her on a trip to Spain, his secretary warns her that he will make a pass. He doesn't then leading into an examination of whether he, a notorious womanizer, is not attracted or her or, as Pat the secretary believes, he's falling for her. Finally he does kiss her and proposes they become loves, but she tells him she wants nothing less than love and marriage, and they go round like that a few times. When another beau proposes to her, she realizes she is in love with James, and eventually things come to a head she tells him the truth, quiting her job. She is referred to his fashion designer friend for a new job, and she moves on but despairs (and would rather be an interior designer). Finally she decides to meet him on his terms (live together as a trial) rather than die a virgin still loving him but after she posts her letter, she receives one from him in which he asks her to marry him! She agrees and once they are engaged she tries to seduce him but he insists they wait for marriage (the next day) as he loves her in that honorable way.
This book was published in the 70's and you can tell. As someone who wasn't yet born when the book was written, I view this almost as a historcial, and as such it works fine. Evidence of the sexual revolution abounds in descriptions of the female design partner who hires young men to be her assistants while James typically hires girls who he seduces and otherwise engages in what would now be sexual harrassment. The characters are all quite progressive in their attitudes however, and Marina is (happily) someone who isn't going to drop her promising career for a husband. [Speaking of progressive, the title, although cryptic is a welcome change from "modern" HP novels, and I shudder to think what this would have been titled had it been released in 2008!]
All in all I found this book to be pleasant enough although not necessarily something that I will want to read again and again.
