The life of Harriet Spencer, Countess of Bessborough, was one of both respectability and high scandal. She was born into the wealth and privilege of the Spencer family - and was the great-great-great-aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales. This book describes aristocratic life and brings one of the Regency periods characters to life. And so began the affair that became the last, untold story of enduring love in the Regency period, an open secret within just a tiny circle. It only ended when Granville married her niece, Georgianas daughter, taking into his care the two illegitimate children he had by Harriet. Harriets was a life intertwined with public scandal, royal intrigue and high political drama. She was petted and spoiled by Marie Antoinette; she witnessed the French Revolution and George IIIs madness. She successfully dodged the Prince Regents amorous advances; quarrelled bitterly with Byron, when her daughter Caroline Lamb embarked on a scandalous affair with him; and travelled through war-torn Europe during the rise and fall of Napoleon. She survived her sister Georgiana by twenty years, living to see the Battle of Waterloo and the coronation of George IV. "An Aristocratic Affair" opens a window on aristocratic life at its most intimate, and brings one of the Regency periods most colourful characters vividly to life.