The Accused Curate

When a housemaid is murdered at Lord Chadbon’s country house party, suspicion falls on Rupert Grande, the disreputable new curate who discovered her body.

Kate, the young wife of an ambitious politician, knows he is innocent of the killing and refuses to accept an arrest arranged to spare Chadbon and his important guests any scandal.

She alone knows that the seemingly dutiful rural clergyman is Lord Rupert Grande, the amiable rake whose ordination the ton treated as a joke, and that the two of them grew up as closest friends.

Constrained by childhood loyalty and her host’s demand for discretion, she must uncover why Rupert has arrived incognito, what the murdered maid meant to him, and who truly committed the crime.

Her search reveals unpleasant truths about men she once considered decent, while renewed closeness to Rupert awakens old feelings and an improper attraction that must remain unspoken.