Lady Trevarren and the Emerald Brooch by Miriam Rochester

When Lord Trevarren loses everything in a card game to Lord Northcote, the dissolute Earl of Winstanley, his children, Sophie and her young brother Daniel go to live with their kindly Uncle and Aunt, Baron and Lady Wyndholme.

Amongst that lost to them is a brooch, which holds a secret that only Sophie knows. She is determined to get it back in order to secure the future for her young brother.

Holding up the Winstanley Coach she gets more than she bargains for when the Lord Northcote she holds up is not the Lord Northcote she is expecting. Sophie is accomplished in the art of self-defence but this Lord Northcote, returning from the Peninsular Wars is a far more dangerous prospect.

Colonel Northcote is not for one moment fooled by the young masked girl who challenges him, and determines to find out who she is and why she harbours so much animosity towards his family. Returning home, he slowly discovers that all is not as it should be. As he slowly uncovers his brother’s double dealings and endeavours to unmask the identity of his lady rogue, he his drawn into a web of treachery and deceit that eventually leads to murder.

The problem is that Lady Sophie Trevarren, the woman of his dreams, is his prime suspect. Firstly, as his lady rogue and later as the murderer. As he delves deeper into the mystery, his own life his threatened. Facing certain death, he has no one to save him. Or has he?