Mischief at Marsden Manor

England, September 1926 


A weekend party at venerable Marsden Manor serves up annoyances big and small for Bright Young Thing Philippa Darling and her cousins, Christopher and Francis Astley. 


There’s the scheming Lady Laetitia Marsden, and her death-grip on Christopher’s and Francis’s cousin (and Pippa’s personal nemesis) Crispin, Viscount St George. 


There’s Laetitia’s brother, the handsy Lord Geoffrey, and his proclivity for trying to seduce anything in a skirt—by force, if necessary. 


There’s their mother, Countess Euphemia, and her willful obliviousness to anything her children get up to. There’s the general feeling of ill-will towards Pippa’s and Christopher’s new friend the Graf von und zu Natterdorff—including the tension between the Graf and Francis, left over from the war Francis fought against the Germans. 


And then, of course, there are the nocturnal wanderings and the murder…