The Lady Evelyn: A Story of To-Day
An architect arrives at a grand Derbyshire estate with plans to restore its crumbling glory, only to discover the house holds secrets as crumbling as its stones. Gavin Ord, talented and ambitious, expects straightforward work. What he finds is Etta Romney, a mysterious young woman living under an assumed name, hiding in plain sight among the aristocracy while nursing dreams of the stage. She is, in fact, the Earl's daughter playing at being common. He is a tradesman dreaming of respectability. In the shadowed halls of Melbourne Hall, where a spectral figure drifts by the river and doors stay locked for reasons no one explains, two strangers circle each other across an impossible divide. This is a story of the lies we tell to become who we believe we're meant to be, and the dangerous truth that sometimes the mask fits better than the face. Pemberton weaves romance, mystery, and quiet rebellion into a portrait of early 20th century England, where ambition collides with inheritance and the heart has its own architectural plans.
