Euphemia or the Secret Widow — Catherine J. Bowness

This story is set during the outwardly charming and refined Regency in a small town in Sussex. It is a glorious summer of blazing sun and dazzling skies with the scent of roses wafting across well-tended gardens but, beneath this gentle veneer, passions rage and all is not quite as it seems. Euphemia, having reluctantly accepted an invitation to dinner, meets two people who overturn her quiet life. The first knows her secret, the second bears a name which causes her to faint even before dinner is served. She thinks she is the only one who is concealing something; she is not. Danger mounts until one afternoon, in grave peril, she discovers not only what really happened seven years ago but a good deal more besides. Written in an old-fashioned, sophisticated style lightly seasoned with ironic wit, this is a book which recreates its period whilst at the same time depicting the unchanging nature of human emotion. People, as always, behave in the way that Society demands but, beneath the carapace of early 19th century manners, they feel no differently to the way people do today.