A Game of Hearts

When Alexander Duvelle, 11th Earl of Ellismere returns home from years overseas to gather the bits and pieces of his ruined family, he does not expect to find both love and a murder mystery in the middle of chaos.

***

England, 1891.

The Right Honorable Sir Alexander Edmund St Thomas Duvelle, younger brother of the dashing earl of Ellismere has spent the last ten years or so with his hands in the Turkish dirt, searching for a past long gone while trying to flee his own.

But when his brother mysteriously dies, Alexander is suddenly the earl, and he has to rush home to find the estate and ancestral seat of Ellismere in shambles. The coffers are empty, the house is derelict and the estate is on the verge of collapse. All the while, the dowager countess' unruly sister is playing hazard with the family's reputation in Paris, and the death of Alexander's brother is still painfully unsolved. Something has to be done.

With help from surprising allies, Alexander slowly begins to unravel the mystery of his late brother's last footsteps into the seedy underbelly of 19th-century London, and maybe even find love along the way.