A captivating new historical novel from Madeline Martin, set in Victorian London about a forbidden book club, dangerous secrets, and the women who dare to break free.
You are cordially invited to the Secret Book Society…
London, 1885: Trapped by oppressive marriages and societal expectations, three women receive a mysterious invitation to an afternoon tea at the home of the reclusive Lady Duxbury. Beneath the genteel facade of the gathering lies a secret book club — a sanctuary where they can discover freedom, sisterhood, and the courage to rewrite their stories.
Eleanor Clarke, a devoted mother suffocating under the tyranny of her husband. Rose Wharton, a transplanted American dollar princess struggling to fit the mold of an aristocratic wife. Lavinia Cavendish, an artistic young woman haunted by a dangerous family secret. All are drawn to the enigmatic Lady Duxbury, a thrice-widowed countess whose husbands’ untimely deaths have sparked whispers of murder.
As the women form deep, heartwarming friendships, they uncover secrets about their marriages, their pasts, and the risks they face. Their courage is their only weapon in the oppressive world that has kept them silent, but when secrets are deadly, one misstep could cost them everything.
Lady Duxbury
London, England
June 1895
Clara Chambers, the Countess of Duxbury, entered her drawing room and considered the urchin who’d demanded to be seen at once. His urgency was evident in the tap of his scuffed shoe upon the lush green-and-gold Brussels-weave carpet. There was a leanness to the boy’s cheeks, with skeletal hollows visible beneath his collarbones, though his face and hands were clean and his cap appeared to be new.
“My lady, your friend has been taken.” A missing front tooth showed when he spoke, one that likely wouldn’t grow back due to his age. He extended his hands and her gaze fell on the item he offered.
Recognition crushed the breath from her: a single black kid-leather boot with detailed rose embroidery stitched alongside the lacings.
She knew that boot. And she knew its wearer.
“Taken where?” Lady Duxbury demanded.
“Leavenhall Lunatic Asylum.” He shook the hair out of his eyes with the jerk of his head, revealing an earnest brown gaze.
“She called out as her carriage passed, asking me to tell you she was being took there and gave me your house number. She tossed me this boot out the window, so you’d know I was being truthful.”
Panic hit Lady Duxbury.
The asylum.
This was her fault.
Everything had gone wrong.
What began with innocent intent had been manipulated into something ugly. Something dangerous.
She pulled in a fortifying breath and accepted the boot, the heft light in her hands despite the weight settling across her shoulders.
“You’ll help?” The boy’s brows pinched. “I know her. I didn’t see her face, but I’d recognize that boot anywhere.” His tone was soft, burdened with a sorrow that tugged at the fresh wound in Lady Duxbury’s chest.
Could she help?
Her pulse thundered in her ears, and her stomach swam with a feeling she had vowed never to succumb to again. Fear.
After all this time, she thought she was stronger.
“I’ll do what I can,” Lady Duxbury said with a confidence she wished she felt.
After all, she was responsible. Not only for the woman now taken, but for the others as well. Women who had been repressed, who had been trapped, abandoned to their fates by those they loved. They were all at risk, exposed in ways that could be their downfall.
Lady Duxbury had offered the women sanctuary, opportunities that were never afforded to herself, and she’d failed them. That failure now sliced over a tangle of old scars deep within her.
She nodded to her butler. “Tip the boy generously for this important message, Davies. He might well have saved a woman’s life.”
“I hope you’re right, my lady.” The boy’s thin chest puffed out at her praise. Doubtless he was just as starved for affirmation as he was for sustenance.
“Give him some bread and cheese as well,” Lady Duxbury added, unwilling to let him leave without a full belly. So many children in London these days were starving. “And more to take with him.”
Davies’s mouth drew in a hard line, the only show of protest in the middle- aged man’s demeanor as he unlocked the small drawer where coins were held for such purpose. But then, he was diligent in his efforts to ensure her protection. The coins clinked into the boy’s hand.
After so many painful years, she thought herself in control of her life. Insulated from the threats that once stalked her, surrounded only by those she trusted, shielded by Davies and the esteem and wealth of her position in Society.
Foolish.
She’d been foolish.
And now someone else would pay the price.
“Thank you for helping her.” The boy held his cap reverently to his chest. “She’s the only person who ever saw good in me.”
An ache settled in the back of Lady Duxbury’s throat, a vicious, stubborn knot that made breathing hard, let alone speaking. She nodded mutely with a small, reassuring smile that trembled more than she would have liked.
Davies led the boy from the drawing room, leaving Lady Duxbury momentarily alone.
She considered the boot in her hand. Mud encrusted one side, while the other was as pristine as the first day she’d seen it. Her fingers wandered to the smooth crystal cap of the brooch just over her heart where the lock of dark hair formed a crisscrossing pattern. A source of strength. A reminder of what she’d once had. There wasn’t a day gone by that she did not miss him, that she did not recall her promise.
The solid stride of Davies’s feet on the thick carpet announced his return.
Lady Duxbury hastily wrote out two notes. “Have these sent to the others at once.”
Before he could depart, her gaze caught a new flower arrangement on the table by the book of herbs that had been so helpful in her past. “Wait— where did these come from?”
“There is a card, my lady.” Davies bowed and departed to comply with her request, aware of its importance.
Once more alone, Lady Duxbury approached the flowers. The combination of blooms was a curious assortment she would never have commissioned. The waxy, bell-shaped foxglove rife with secrets, the promise of sorrow in the blue forget-me-nots, the violent red trumpets of petunias, and a mass of begonias, vivid pink and menacing. A warning hummed like a pitch in the back of Lady Duxbury’s mind.
Who would assemble such a bouquet?
She gently set the boot on the table beside the wide vase and plucked the note from the verdant nest of stems. A single name had been printed in neat letters on the back of the card, and the muscles along Lady Duxbury’s neck tensed.
Had the woman not done enough harm?
And how much did she know that might still be Lady Duxbury’s ruin?
A lightheaded sensation washed over her, blurring the golds and greens of her drawing room into a nauseous palette. She leaned onto the table, drawing careful sips of air to set herself to rights. But how could she ever be right again with so much going so wrong, when she now realized that her strength was only a facade?
The room sharpened into focus once more, that horrendous bouquet, a threat in every vicious blossom. Quickly, she looked about to ensure no one had witnessed her moment of weakness.
Her gaze found the boot once more, catching a sliver of paper jutting from inside the tongue that she hadn’t noticed before. Pinching the edge, she gently dislodged the note and unfolded it.
She exhaled a pained breath, immediately recognizing the stationery adorned with a crosshatch of heather and her own handwriting. The missive was one she’d had secretly delivered to the ladies two months ago. At the time, she hadn’t consid-ered that her endeavors to offer help might instead bring harm.
Even as she told herself not to, her eyes scanned the lines of the letter, reading the words she had put to paper at the start of it all.
You are cordially invited to the Secret Book Society . . .
