Author/Uploaded by Sarah Ferguson
Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Contents Author’s Note Part 1: Drumlanrig Castle, Scottish Borders Chapter One: An Intriguing Encounter Chapter Two: Reeling at the Ceilidh Chapter Three: The Dormouse Chapter Four: The Shooting Party Chapter Five: Mayhem on the Moors Chapter Six: Repercu...
Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Contents Author’s Note Part 1: Drumlanrig Castle, Scottish Borders Chapter One: An Intriguing Encounter Chapter Two: Reeling at the Ceilidh Chapter Three: The Dormouse Chapter Four: The Shooting Party Chapter Five: Mayhem on the Moors Chapter Six: Repercussions Chapter Seven: Machinations Chapter Eight: Lady Mary Investigates Chapter Nine: Accusations Chapter Ten: A Heart to Heart Chapter Eleven: The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune Chapter Twelve: Alone Again, Naturally Part 2: Newburgh Priory, Yorkshire Chapter Thirteen: We’ll Meet Again Chapter Fourteen: The Dog Kennel Garden Chapter Fifteen: Relics Chapter Sixteen: Lady Mary, Quite Contrary Chapter Seventeen: I Get a Kick Out of You Chapter Eighteen: The Water Garden Chapter Nineteen: Maybe This Time Chapter Twenty: A Maid All Forlorn Chapter Twenty-One: The Shootist Chapter Twenty-Two: A Little Digging Chapter Twenty-Three: To Catch a Thief Chapter Twenty-Four: Ready to Run! Part 3: Carlsbad and London Chapter Twenty-Five: Taking the Cure Chapter Twenty-Six: Home Truths Chapter Twenty-Seven: London Calling Chapter Twenty-Eight: Take a Chance on Me Chapter Twenty-Nine: Cliveden Chapter Thirty: Two Are Better Than One Chapter Thirty-One: Acting Up Chapter Thirty-Two: Slumdog Mary Chapter Thirty-Three: When Mary Met Queenie Chapter Thirty-Four: The Spy Who Loves Me Chapter Thirty-Five: A Fair Exchange Is No Robbery Chapter Thirty-Six: Nothing Compares to You Part 4: Drumlanrig Castle, Scottish Borders Chapter Thirty-Seven: Equal but Different Historical Note About the Authors Also by Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York Copyright About the Publisher iii v 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 Dedication Because no-one knows you like a sister, or misunderstands you like a sister, and yet loves you like a sister, this book is dedicated to my own dear sister, Jane. Author’s Note Dear Reader, A Most Intriguing Lady is my second collaboration with Marguerite Kaye, and my second novel set in the Victorian period. Lady Mary, my heroine, may be familiar to readers of Her Heart for a Compass as the youngest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, but the journey she undertakes is very different from the one her elder sister travels in the previous book. Lady Mary is not a heroine who relishes the limelight—quite the opposite. She’s a quiet observer, the kind of person who picks up on every tiny personal detail and foible and who has a real talent for piecing them together to form an accurate picture of the person concerned. Lady Mary is a wallflower, easy to ignore, and very easy to under-estimate. In fact, though she doesn’t know it at the beginning of this book, she has all the qualities that would make her an excellent sleuth. This isn’t a detective story, however. It is, like Her Heart for a Compass, a story about a woman trying to find her niche in the world, and refusing to fit the mould her lineage demands. Lady Mary has to battle duty and heritage, convention and custom, to live her life in her own manner. Based very loosely on the real life Lady Mary Montagu Douglas Scott, A Most Intriguing Lady mingles historical fact and real characters with fiction. From Drumlanrig Castle in the Scottish Borders, to Yorkshire, the spa town of Carlsbad in Bohemia, and on to London, Lady Mary’s journey is one of self-discovery and—eventually—finding love. This is a work of fiction, but in writing it I have drawn some deliberate parallels with my own life and used some of my own experiences to give authenticity to Lady Mary’s character. My parents’ separation when I was fifteen left me motherless and lonely. Discovering, as an adult, that my parents had lost a