The Secret Book Society

Lady Clara Chambers, the Countess of Duxbury, is sitting in her London drawing room in June 1895, when Sam, a young boy, rushes in with a black boot embroidered with roses. Sam tells Lady Duxbury that the boot’s owner has been taken to Leavenhall Lunatic Asylum. She threw the boot to Sam so he could bring it to Lady Duxbury. Lady Duxbury recognizes the boot as a friend’s and instructs her butler, Davies, to pay and feed Sam. As Sam leaves, Lady Duxbury writes an urgent summons to her allies.

Lady Duxbury also receives a bouquet of foxglove and petunias, accompanied by a threatening card. The poisonous flowers signal that an old enemy or betrayal has breached her circle. Lady Duxbury checks the boot and finds a slip of paper hidden inside: her own two-month-old invitation to the Secret Book Society. She wonders if her secret book society has led her friend into danger.

The narrative returns to two months earlier, at Clarke Manor, where Eleanor Clarke receives Lady Duxbury’s private invitation to the Secret Book Society. Eleanor hides it, recalling her first meeting with Lady Duxbury three years earlier at a charity event, where she had inadvertently revealed her love for