Showing results by author "Catherine Lloyd" in All Categories

Lucy Harrington has returned to Kurland St. Mary to help with her friend Sophia Giffin's wedding. But her homecoming is made disagreeable by the presence of Major Robert Kurland, whose bungled proposal has ruffled Lucy's composure, and a meddling widow who has designs on her father, the village rector. Wary of the cloying Mrs. Chingford from the start, Lucy has doubts about the busybody's intentions with her father. But everyone else seems to think they make an ideal match—until the courtship is curtailed when Mrs. Chingford is found dead at the bottom of a staircase.

Major Robert Kurland has returned to the quiet vistas of Kurland St. Mary to recuperate from the horrors of Waterloo. However injured his body may be, his mind is as active as ever. Too active, perhaps. When he glimpses a shadowy figure from his bedroom window struggling with a heavy load, the tranquil façade of the village begins to loom sinister....

Once known to all in her village as the rector's daughter, Lucy is now a mother herself - to a wonderful 18-month-old son, Ned. Upon discovering that she is expecting a second child, Lucy and Robert are delighted. In anticipation of the new arrival, Lucy is set on expanding her nursery staff. When Agnes, her current nurse, recommends her cousin, it seems like the perfect solution. But trouble arrives along with the new nursery maid from London. When a farmer finds her lifeless body in a drainage ditch, Lucy and Robert fear foul play.

Miss Caroline has doubts when she receives an urgent invitation from a London law firm to discuss her late father's estate. After all, the dishonored Earl of Morton died without a pound sterling to pass on to his two daughters. But while immersing herself in helping Mrs. Frogerton's capricious daughter navigate the high social season, Caroline meets with a cagey lawyer, Mr. Smith, who shares life-altering news—the earl composed a second will, leaving behind an undisclosed fortune. Mrs. Frogerton, however, is thoroughly unimpressed with the firm's conduct and suspicious of their true motives.

The options for the penniless daughter of a deceased earl are few indeed in Regency England. So, following the suspicious death of her father, the Earl of Morton, and the discovery that she and her much younger sister have been left without income or home, Lady Caroline takes a post as a lady's companion to the wealthy widow Frogerton. Just as Caroline is getting accustomed to her new position, her aunt, Lady Eleanor Greenwood, invites her and her employer to a house party in the countryside to celebrate her youngest daughter's birthday. But all is not well at the Greenwood estate. 

Social standing is everything in Regency England—and no one knows better than Miss Caroline Morton, a lady's companion from a disgraced line. But when she has a chance to claim what's rightfully hers, the one obstacle in her way is a dangerous murder mystery....

Lucy and Robert's joy in christening their new daughter, surrounded by extended family and loved ones who have gathered in the village of Kurland St. Mary, is only enhanced when Robert's aunt Rose - now the second wife of Lucy's father, Ambrose - announces that she is with child. However, not everyone is happy about the news, in particular Rose's adult daughter, Henrietta, and her husband, who fear for their inheritance. Following the christening, Rose's disagreeable son-in-law Basil Northam threatens to turn afternoon tea in the rectory into an unsightly brawl.  

As Miss Lucy Harrington, daughter of the village rector, and Major Sir Robert Kurland plan their nuptials, the major is beginning to wonder if he'll ever hear wedding bells. He's seen complex military campaigns that involved less strategy, and he's finding Lucy's meddling family maddening. When the body of Ezekiel Thurrock, the church verger, is discovered crushed by a gargoyle that has fallen from the bell tower, the wedding is delayed.

With the reluctant blessings of their father, the rector of Kurland St. Mary, Lucy Harrington and her sister Anna leave home for a social season in London. At the same time, Lucy's special friend Major Robert Kurland is summoned to the city to accept a baronetcy for his wartime heroism.

Lady Caroline is happy to be back amid the swirl of London society, guiding her employer's daughter, Dorothy Frogerton, through her first Season. Mrs. Frogerton, meanwhile, finds her own diversions, including spiritualist gatherings at the home of Madam Lavinia, and begs Caroline to come along. Caroline is sceptical of the Madam's antics and faux French accent—until she slips a note into Caroline's hand, which contains intimate family knowledge. Even as Caroline tries to discern whether the spiritualist's powers are real, a much darker mystery presents itself.

After Sir Robert's injury from the battle of Waterloo begins troubling him again, his wife Lucy insists they relocate from the village of Kurland St. Mary to Bath, along with her sister Anna, so that Robert can take the waters and recover. At the Roman baths, Robert befriends an elderly and pugnacious businessman, Sir William Benson, ennobled by the Crown for his service to industry. Their acquaintance is short-lived, however, when the man is found drowned in the baths. Robert vows to find his killer, with Lucy's aid.

Three years have passed since Major Sir Robert Kurland and Lucy Harrington, the rector's daughter, became husband and wife. Having established a measure of contentment among the local gentry, the couple lately have found an unsettling distance grown between them. But when peace in the small village is disrupted by an anonymous letter accusing Lucy of witchcraft, her unfulfilled desire to be a mother becomes the least of her worries, especially after she learns she is not the only one to have received such a malicious letter.  

Post-war London is a city in flux, with burned-out buildings serving as vivid reminders of the past. But beneath those scars is a sense of resurging optimism. Chrissie Walker, a new student at Goldsmiths arts college, feels it keenly. So does Mary Quant, the auburn-haired classmate who becomes Chrissie's best friend.

Mitten in der Ballsaison erschüttert ein Giftmord Londons High Society. Lucy Harrington und Robert Kurland ermitteln erneut im Regency England. Voller Vorfreude verlassen die Pfarrerstöchter Lucy und Anna Harrington ihr beschauliches Heimatdorf Kurland St. Mary, um der aufregenden Londoner Ballsaison beizuwohnen. Zur selben Zeit befindet sich auch Major Robert Kurland in London, wo er für seine Heldentaten im Krieg zum Baron geadelt werden soll. Doch der Wirbel von Bällen und formellen Dinnern wird überschattet von dem plötzlichen Tod der Witwe Countess of Broughton.

Pfarrerstochter Lucy und Major Kurland ermitteln in einem düsteren Fall... Die historische Cosy Krimi-Reihe im Regency England beginnt. Eigentlich ist Major Robert Kurland in sein ruhiges Heimatdorf zurückgekehrt, um sich von den Schrecken Waterloos zu erholen. Sein Körper ist verletzt, aber sein Geist immer noch hellwach. Als er aus seinem Fenster etwas Verdächtiges beobachtet, beginnt die idyllische Fassade des Dorfes zu bröckeln. Seine Beobachtung vertraut er Miss Lucy Harrington an, der cleveren Tochter des Pfarrers und Kurlands guter Freundin seit Kindheitstagen.