Hello there! Lady Marigold Fairfax here, how do you do?

Do you hear that thunder? That’s the North Sea—because I am, thank the Lord, home in Northumberland again at Fairfax Tower after a few months in London. The creaking? Oh, that’s just my brother Yates—Lord Fairfax, technically speaking—on the trapeze. I’ll be joining him momentarily, and I can’t wait to feel the wind whipping around me while I swing high. The rush when I leap out and clasp my brother’s arms. The joy when we arc through the air, flipping and gliding. I’ll probably mess up my dismount on this first time back on the trapeze, but Yates won’t, annoying boy.

I’m particularly glad to be out of London again before the summer heat makes Town unbearable. Had we the leisure, we’d stay here at the Tower forever—how could we want anything else? When you look around our estate, you’ll see not only this circus ring set up in the courtyard with the trapeze, but a stadium, a theater, a gymnasium—our pride and joy—stables full more of retired circus animals than horses, and of course the house itself. But alas—our Father wasted the entire family fortune on all those buildings and the entertainments performed in them, so we’ve been reduced to earning our own keep. Not that we can let society know this. We own a private investigation firm, but we call it The Imposters, Ltd., which makes all the peers we work for—and spy on—think we’re a bunch of actors sneaking into their ranks to gather information.

Little do they know that we devised the name as children when we wanted to run off and start our own circus—just think of that! A circus full of nobles and aristocrats pretending to be performers. Imposters, indeed.

I walk outside, but a roar makes me pause. Perhaps I’ll give Yates another minute to himself before I join him on the trapeze. Our routines not only entertain us and keep us in prime condition, they also aid us in our…shall we say…clandestine work. No one ever thinks to lock windows on the tenth floor of a building, after all, but we can scale a wall like Penelope the Monkey. Just now, though, it’s another old friend I’m keen to visit.

Leonidas saunters out to greet me as I near the stables, the old lion tamer, Hector, following behind with a hand lifted. I smile at the aging Romani and the aging lion both and bend over, arms outstretched. Leonidas musters enough cub to jog to me and bump me over, and I wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his mane with a laugh.

I wish every day could be like this. A lion hug, time on the trapeze with my brother, perhaps a cooking lesson from Drina. Yates and I will then pore over our files—the dossiers and case files—and decide which of our jobs demands our attention next. It’s funny. I both love the work and hate all it’s taught me. Once upon a time, I took people at face value. Once upon a time, I thought they were all what they appeared.

Now I know better. Now even I am not what I appear. Because when next I go to London, I’ll don the highest of fashions—remade in my own attic, mind you—fasten the most audacious hat imaginable over my hair, and play the role I’ve written for myself: Lady M, fashion icon.

But oh, the things society will never know…

A Beautiful Disguise, The Imposters Mystery Book #1
Genre: Historical
Release: August 2023
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

In Edwardian London, not all that glitters is gold as a lady and an intelligence officer’s secret mission take them from the city’s dazzling ballrooms to its covert intelligence offices.

Sir Merritt Livingstone has spent a decade serving the monarch in the field, but when pneumonia lands him behind a desk in the War Office Intelligence Division just as they’re creating a new secret intelligence branch, he’s intent on showing his worth. He suspects an aristocrat of leaking information to Germany as tensions mount between the two countries, but he needs someone to help him prove it, so he turns to The Imposters, Ltd. No one knows who they are, but their results are beyond compare.

Left with an estate on the brink of bankruptcy after their father’s death, Lady Marigold Fairfax and her brother open a private investigation firm for the elite to spy on the elite. Dubbed The Imposters, Ltd., their anonymous group soon becomes the go-to for the crème of society who want answers delivered surreptitiously. But the many secrets Marigold learns about her peers pale in comparison to her shock when she and her brother are hired to investigate her best friend’s father as a potential traitor.

Lady Marigold is determined to discover the truth for her friend’s sake, and she’s more determined still to keep her heart from getting involved with this enigmatic new client . . . who can’t possibly be as noble as he seems.

Meet the author
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. You can learn more about her and her stories at RoseannaMWhite.com.

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