Deception

Deception - A Cozy Mystery - Work In Progress Unpublished

It is the spring of Queen Victoria’s coming to the throne, and returning home from her father’s house, the widowed Lady Olivia Mayne and her companion, Sybilla Hunt, are attacked by highwaymen. Olivia hands over her valuables but Sybilla refuses to relinquish her gold locket. In the confusion, shots are fired, the horses bolt and the coach overturns, killing Sybilla.

Stunned at the tragic death of her friend, Olivia is only vaguely interested in the investigation her father, Lord Marcham, instigates to apprehend the culprits. When it is suggested she goes to stay with distant relations to avoid the attention such an event is bound to cause in their circle, Olivia is only too happy to comply and using the name Mrs Vale, Olivia goes to stay with the Lowthers and their three charming daughters.

Olivia meets the Lowther’s neighbours, Lady Marjery Havering her nephew Byrne Cantrell and his friends. She is attracted to, and yet dismisses Byrne as an idle young man living of his aunt's largesse, who treats her as the woman she present herself, an impoverished widow.

Within a day of her arrival, Olivia’s brother, Conrad, Viscount Cranfield brings news that all at home is not well.  After another death and an attack, it appears the ‘orphan’ Sybilla, may not be whom she purported to be.

Olivia is determined to set her own trap for whoever was involved in Sybilla’s death, but can she expose him before he silences her?