The Crimson Rooms — Katharine McMahon

Still haunted by the death of her brother, James, seven years ago in World War I, Evelyn Gifford is shocked when a young nurse named Meredith and her six-year-old son appear on her London doorstep. The child, Meredith claims, is James's son, conceived in a battlefield hospital shortly before his death. The grief-stricken Gifford family welcomes the child, who is the spitting image of James. But Evelyn, a struggling attorney, must now support her entire family on her salary -- at a time when work for female lawyers is virtually nonexistent.

Suddenly a new case falls into Evelyn's lap, though winning appears hopeless. Stephen Wheeler -- a veteran charged with murdering his young wife -- seems destined to die on the gallows. Nicholas Thorne, a dashing lawyer, offers to help Evelyn prove Wheeler's innocence. Though she is needled by Thorne's moneyed background and old-fashioned attitudes, she agrees. For Evelyn suspects her client is truly innocent, just as she suspects there is more to the story of her "nephew" than meets the eye...