Now Lord Lazonby, Welham has sent for Napier, knowing that he’s the only man who can clear Welham’s name of suspicion once and for all. We then jump ahead two years, and to the scene of the murder of Sir Wilfred Leeton, an old crony of Rance Welham’s.

Napier is struck by the depth of her hatred and her intensity, but can do nothing for her – Welham has been exonerated, due process has been followed, and that’s an end of it. She wants to see him hang for his crimes. She holds Welham responsible for the death of her father and her sister’s fiancé, for a life lived in penury in the charge of uncaring relatives, and for causing the death of her sister. A young woman, Elizabeth Colbourne, bursts into his office demanding the re-arrest and conviction for murder of Rance Welham, future Lord Lazonby (whose story is told in the previous book). The story opens in 1847 in the office of Assistant Commissioner of Police, Royden Napier. But after a chapter or so, I had it worked out and I got sucked into the story.

There’s a fairly large cast of recurring and supporting characters, all of whom are introduced in a helpful foreword by the author – but in the early stages, I had to keep referring back to the list to check who was who, which did interrupt the flow of reading. Usually when I pick up a book mid-series, I can say confidently that I don’t think it’s necessary to have read the others, but with this one, I felt at a slight disadvantage, and I’m not quite sure why that was. This is the fourth book in a series of which I have not (yet) read the other three.

A Bride by Moonlight by Liz Carlyle