Georgette Heyer 
These Old Shades 

Georgette Heyer virtually invented historical and regency romance. Her witty writing and carful plotting forever changed readers expectations. These Old Shades was originally conceived of as a sequel to her first novel The Black Moth. Ultimately she decided that since These Old Shades was not a melodrama it wouldn’t work as a sequel to The Black Moth; so she reworked the book as a stand alone novel and changed many of the characters’ names. A delightful change of station novel that Shakespeare and Dickens would have approved of. Lonie has been disguised as a boy all of her life. When a great lord shows up at her brother’s tavern and buys her to train as his page her life is forever changed.