A Lark's Flight — Lynn Messina

Verity Lark, Unraveling Deception.

Verity Lark -- England's most tenacious gossip, the London Daily Gazette's most dogged reporter -- relishes a challenge, which is why she refuses Colson Hardwicke's offer of menial employment. If the infuriating scoundrel really needs the sister of a radical reformer to be distracted with girlish chitchat, he can bloody well erupt into giggles!

She has more important things to do -- figuring out why Hardwicke is interested in the radical reformer. During her previous run-in with him, he had shown himself to be the superior tactician, and she is determined to even the score. Proving that the radical reformer is an escaped fugitive is one way. Saving the country from a Luddite insurrection is another.

But when Verity stumbles across a dead man in a rundown boarding house, the competition suddenly stops being a game. There is more going on than she had ever imagined, and as she struggles to untangle Hardwicke's web of machinations, she is forced to wonder if she has been a pawn all along.

Welcome to the second installment of the Verity Lark Mysteries, where secrets run deep, and every move could be her last.