Rosalind Thorne #7
The Secret of the Lady’s Maid is Darcie Wilde’s seventh book about Rosalind Thorne, a Regency gentlewoman who has fallen on hard times after her father abandoned his family, and who makes a living undertaking discreet investigations for ladies who find themselves in difficult situations. (But see below for my complaint about the series numbering). By this time, Rosalind has acquired quite a reputation, and whenever she is seen visiting a family, people know that the family must be having difficulties.
Rosalind has set up house with her best friend, novelist Alice Littlefield. Alice and the pair’s maid, Amelia, are in a same-sex relationship which they, of course, keep secret. One day Amelia finds Cate Levitton, the daughter of the family to whom she had previously been in service, deathly ill in the marketplace and takes her to Rosalind’s house. Amelia and Cate had had a relationship before, which led to Amelia’s dismissal from the household. The Levittons are convinced that Amelia seduced Cate and the relationship Is not their daughter’s fault, but still they banished Cate to live with her elderly aunt Marianna. When Cate’s father died soon afterwards, Cate, her mother, and Marianna all came to live under the same roof in the family’s London house.
After observing Cate’s symptoms, Rosalind and her love interest, Bow Street Runner Adam Harkness, believe that she’s been poisoned with arsenic, and the nurse attending Marianna confirms this. Marianna is suffering from a long-term illness, which Rosalind believes was also caused by arsenic poisoning. But Cate’s illness happened suddenly, while Marianna’s is long-lasting. Nevertheless, Rosalind thinks the same person poisoned both women. But who has a motive? Marianna hires Rosalind to investigate.
As it turns out, Cate was engaged, against her will, to Harold Davenport, a young mining engineer who’s a protégé of Marianna’s. The story that she tells Rosalind is that she ran away from home to escape the engagement, but Rosalind realized Cate is lying about that, and about many other things. She discovers that the poison was probably given to Cate during a dinner party that Cate’s brothers and sister-in-law gave for her, to celebrate her engagement. But how did the poisoner manage to do it without poisoning the whole party? Cate’s family members, except her mother and aunt, are all suspects, and they are unpleasant characters. Her older brother is rude and disagreeable to everyone, and very jealous of his beautiful wife, but with reason, as it happens, because she’s carrying on an affair with Harold. The younger brother seems more likable on the surface. He’s the peacemaker in the family, but he always acts in a way that benefits himself, and he uses people’s secrets against them.
While searching the house for clues, Rosalind finds a pawnbroker’s tickets in Cate’s room. Did Cate pawn her jewelry to finance her escape? Or is the jewelry even hers? Rosalind finds out that the jewelry is much too valuable to have been Cate’s or her aunt’s. As it turns out, Cate had been involved in a series of thefts, along with a group of female thieves. She has been lying to Rosalind about practically everything. Rosalind also begins to suspect that her maid, Amelia, has also been lying to her. Could Amelia also have been involved in the thefts? Also, it is clear that Amelia still has feelings for Cate. How will it affect her present relationship with Alice?
Meanwhile, Adam is investigating a group of men accused of treason. He is not certain they are guilty or, at least, that they acted on their own. A radical member of Parliament approaches him and offers him a thousand pounds if he can find another man, who is said to be the one who led the group to commit treason, and who might have been a government spy. Adam is tempted by the offer: a thousand pounds would enable him to marry Rosalind. But his politically-minded boss is more interested in securing a conviction than discovering the truth, and he threatens Adam with being accused of treason himself if he interferes with the trial. Adam is torn between doing what’s right and doing what’s politically expedient.
At first it seems that Rosalind’s and Adam’s cases have nothing to do with each other, but of course they do. Without giving too much away, I will say that Marianna Levitton, a fascinating character, holds radical political beliefs and even thinks women should have the right to vote, at a time when very few people thought so. I would definitely like to see her in future novels.
Figuring out what’s happening in this novel is like putting together a puzzle. We begin with separate pieces: the poisonings, the thefts, and Adam’s investigations of the treasonous plot, and the fun of the book is putting it all together. Once you figure out how it all fits together, the novel is very satisfying. I didn’t guess who was guilty until the very end, even though, now that I think back on it, I probably should have.
The relationship between Rosalind and Adam, which was largely absent from the previous novel, takes a more prominent role in this one. They love each other, and Rosalind has even turned down a marriage proposal from a duke because she loves Adam, but she also knows that, if she gets married, she will lose her independence, and everything she has built up by helping ladies with their difficulties. Adam is concerned that he won’t have enough money to support Rosalind in a lifestyle appropriate to her upbringing. He is from a lower social class, after all. The scenes with Adam’s family point out that difference: his mother works hard in the kitchen, but Rosalind is used to having the cooking done by servants. The reader hopes that Rosalind and Adam will find a way to be together, despite these differences.
I highly recommend this series, especially to fans of Andrea Penrose and (even though these series take place much later) Tasha Alexander and Dianne Freeman. Wilde is excellent at giving details of life in Regency London, among various social classes. Her novels are inspired by Jane Austen, even though Wilde writes more about the lower classes. Most of the chapters of The Secret of the Lady’s Maid begin with quotations, not from Austen, but from another Regency novel, Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda. I have never read Belinda, but I was curious enough to look it up, and, as far as I can tell from the very basic plot summary I found, there are parallels in the plot (a young woman coming to live with an elderly woman, who is slowly dying—or is she?). Certainly, the quotations are all appropriate to the chapters. Wilde has done this with other novels; the previous book in the series, The Secret of the Lost Pearls, had quotations from Pride and Prejudice at the beginning of its chapters, and there were parallels to Pride and Prejudice in the plot.
Which brings me to my only complaint about this book, and it has nothing to do with the story itself. This and the previous book have been marketed as Books 1 and 2 of the “Useful Woman” series, while the five earlier ones are called the “Rosalind Thorne Mysteries.” The publicity material calls the “Useful Woman” titles a spin-off series. But the way I understand it, a spin-off series is when the author takes a secondary character and creates a new series around that character. This is not what happens here. Rosalind is the main character in all seven books. A series about Alice or Amelia would be a spin-off series. These two books about Rosalind would not. To me, it’s all one series, and this is Book 7, not Book 2. Since the cover art for the latest two books is very different from that of the first five, I have a feeling that the publisher decided to re-market the series for a different audience, and they wanted that audience to start with The Secret of the Lost Pearls, which is first in the new numbering. That’s a decision I don’t understand. Why not reissue the earlier books to attract a new audience? Each book in the series certainly stands on its own, but it helps to have read the earlier ones to know how the characters’ relationships have evolved. Having said that, though, I hope the series does find the new audience the publisher is looking for. I highly recommend it. — Vicki Kondelik