A Stroke of Malice

Informationen zum Autor Anna Lee Huber is the Daphne Award-winning author of the national bestselling Lady Darby Mysteries and the Verity Kent Mysteries. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she majored in music and minored in psychology. She currently resides with her family and is hard at work on her next novel. Klappentext Lady Kiera Darby and her husband Sebastian Gage are looking forward to celebrating with new friends at an exciting yearly soiree, but they soon learn that murder never takes a holiday in the latest riveting installment in this national bestselling series. January 1832. After enjoying a delightful few weeks with her family, expectant mother Kiera and Sebastian Gage have been invited to the Duchess of Bowmont's Twelfth Night party in Traquair, Scotland. Though she normally avoids such fashionable, rambunctious events, Kiera is ready to join in the festive merrymaking. But upon their arrival at the opulent estate, it becomes obvious that all is not merry in their hostess's home. The family appears to be under a great strain, and someone seems determined to cause mayhem among the guests with a series of forged notes. Matters swiftly turn from irksome to downright deadly when the partygoers stumble upon a decomposing body in the castle's crypt. The corpse is thought to be the duchess's son-in-law who had purportedly traveled to Paris more than a month earlier. It is evident the man met with foul play, and Kiera and Gage soon realize that a ruthless murderer walks among them-and may well be a member of the duchess's own family. And when the investigation takes a treacherous turn, Kiera discovers just how deep the killer is willing to dig to keep their secrets from ever seeing the light of day. Chapter One   O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!   -Sir Walter Scott, marmion   January 5, 1832   Traquair, Scotland   If there had been any doubts I was visiting a ducal estate, the trumpeting buglers would have clarified the matter. Not that there was truly any confusion. Not when I was staying in a grand 284-room Gothic castle surrounded by nothing but miles of steep snowy hills and ice-choked burns, save the occasional sheep. And the soaring bedchamber to which I'd been assigned was so lavishly furnished it might have put Louis XIV's Versailles to shame. But the buglers were so unexpected, and so extravagant, that after first catching my breath from the start they'd given me, I found myself giggling at the absurdity.   My husband smiled down at me. "They are a trifle excessive, aren't they?"   "Do all dukes feel it necessary to summon their guests in such a manner?" I asked as we descended the stone spiral staircase, his arm linked with mine. Though I had spent a fair amount of time in a number of aristocratic households, including the establishments of my brother-in-law, the Earl of Cromarty, I had never visited the estate of someone as lofty as a duke. Upon our arrival at Sunlaws Castle earlier that day, we'd been greeted by a battalion of footmen dressed in crisp green and black livery with gold braid.   But prior to our marriage nine months earlier, Sebastian Gage's bachelor status, as well as his charm, wealth, and attractiveness had guaranteed he was a greatly sought after guest. And those attributes didn't even factor into account the delicate investigations he often undertook on behalf of the nobility as a gentlemen inquiry agent, or his father's friendships with men as highly ranked as the king himself.   "Not all, but the Duke of Bowmont certainly isn't an aberration," he replied. "In truth, he seems to be one of the more unpretentious persons of his rank. I suspect the buglers are merely tradition. And I suppose we can't argue with their effectiveness." He cringed as another m...

Product details

• Authors: Anna Lee Huber
• Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.04.2020
• EAN: 9780451491381
• ISBN: 978-0-451-49138-1
• No. of pages: 384
• Dimensions: 130 mm x 202 mm x 25 mm
• Series: A Lady Darby Mystery; Lady Darby Mystery
• Subject: Fiction > Suspense