A remarkable debut novel rich in atmosphere, color, and suspense, Caro Peacock's A Foreign Affair is an irresistible blend of history, adventure, and ingenious invention that brings an extraordinary new writer—and a truly endearing and unforgettable heroine—to the literary stage. The year is 1837. Queen Victoria, barely eighteen, has just ascended to the throne of England, and a young woman named Liberty Lane has just had her first taste of true sorrow. Refusing to accept that her gentle, peace-loving father has been killed fighting a duel, she vows to see justice done. . . . The trail she follows is a twisting and dangerous one, leading the spirited young Englishwoman into an intricate weave of conspiracy. Contacted by secret agents, she is asked to pose as a governess in order to infiltrate cold, rambling Mandeville Hall and spy on its master, Sir Herbert Mandeville, who is at the center of a treasonous plan. Nothing at the hall is what it seems, and every turn reveals another deceit, another surprise, another peril, leaving Libby to wonder who to trust and embroiling her in a deadly affair that could destroy the young queen and place Libby herself in mortal peril. . . . A remarkable debut novel rich in atmosphere, color, and suspense, Caro Peacock's A Foreign Affair is an irresistible blend of history, adventure, and ingenious invention that brings an extraordinary new writer—and a truly endearing and unforgettable heroine—to the literary stage. The year is 1837. Queen Victoria, barely eighteen, has just ascended to the throne of England, and a young woman named Liberty Lane has just had her first taste of true sorrow. Refusing to accept that her gentle, peace-loving father has been killed fighting a duel, she vows to see justice done. . . . The trail she follows is a twisting and dangerous one, leading the spirited young Englishwoman into an intricate weave of conspiracy. Contacted by secret agents, she is asked to pose as a governess in order to infiltrate cold, rambling Mandeville Hall and spy on its master, Sir Herbert Mandeville, who is at the center of a treasonous plan. Nothing at the hall is what it seems, and every turn reveals another deceit, another surprise, another peril, leaving Libby to wonder who to trust and embroiling her in a deadly affair that could destroy the young queen and place Libby herself in mortal peril. . . . A Foreign Affair By Caro Peacock HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2008 Caro Peacock All right reserved. ISBN: 9780061445897 Chapter One "Would you be kind enough to tell me where they keep people's bodies," I said. The porter blinked. The edges of his eyelids were pink in a brown face, lashes sparse and painful-looking like the bristles on a gooseberry. Odd the things you notice when your mind's trying to shy away from a large thing. When he saw me coming toward him over the cobbles among the crowds leaving the evening steam packet, he must have expected another kind of question altogether. Something along the lines of "How much do you charge to bring a trunk up from the hold?" or "Where can I find a clean, respectable hotel?" Those kinds of questions were filling the air all round us, mostly in the loud but uneasy tones of the English newly landed at Calais. I'd asked in French, but he obviously thought he'd misheard. "You mean where people stay, at the hotels?" "Not hotels, no. People who've been killed. A gentleman who was killed on Saturday." Another blink and a frown. He looked over my shoulder at his colleagues carrying bags and boxes down the gangplank, regretting his own bad luck in encountering me. "Would he not be in his own house, mademoiselle?" "He has no house here." Nor anywhere else, come to that. He would have had one soon, the tall thin house he was going to rent for us, near the unfashionable end of Oxford Street when we?.?.?.?Don't think about that. "In church then, perhaps." I thought, but didn't say, that he was never a great frequenter of churches. "If an English gentlemanwere killed in?.?.?.?in an accident and had no family here, where might he be taken?" The porter's face went hard. He'd noticed my hesitation. "The morgue is over there, mam'selle." He nodded toward a group of buildings a little back from the seafront then turned, with obvious relief, to a plump man who was pulling at his sleeve and burbling about cases of books. I walked in the direction he'd pointed out but had to ask again before I found my way to a low building, built of bricks covered over with black tarry paint. A man who looked as thin and faded as driftwood was sitting on a chair at the door, smoking a clay pipe. The smell of his tobacco couldn't quite mask another smell coming from inside the building. When he heard me approaching he turned his head without shifting the rest of his body, like a clockwork automaton, and gave me a considering look. "It's possible that you have my father here," I said. He took a long draw on his pi