Elizabethan herbalist Susanna, Lady Appleton, must root out a killer when two women are accused of witchcraft while the real killer, an expert in poisons, remains free to strike again. Reprint.
The moment her friend Sir Walter Pendennis comes to call carrying his wife's crimson cloak over one arm, Susanna senses something terrible has happened - and she's not mistaken. Sir Walter's wife Eleanor, has been trampled by runaway horses, and her dying confession reveals that she has been involved in a plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. Since the lady's co-conspirators have no idea she is dead, Walter proposes a daring plan: Susanna will impersonate his late wife and take her place among the traitors. Now, caught in a web of treachery, deceit, and double-crosses, where there is a turncoat in the shadows who knows more than she does...and who will stop at nothing to silence her forever..