At sixteen, Sarah Tolerance scandalized Society when she ran away with her brother's fencing master. After his death, Society expected her to follow the route of all Fallen Women, and become a courtesan.
But Sarah Tolerance has never done what was expected of her. Instead, she reinvents herself as an Agent of Inquiry - a private investigator for the Quality. Able to slide between social layers, Miss Tolerance unearths secrets, finds things that were lost, and loses things too dangerous to be kept….
Tasked to find an antique fan the Earl of Vermillion's father once gave to "a lady with brown eyes," the job seems a simple enough job. But Sarah soon discovers that she is not the only ones seeking the fan — and that it holds greater secrets than anyone knew. Secrets that may put England, and Miss Tolerance, at risk.
Worse, she finds herself drawn to the Earl, an attachment that they both know is impossible — and may put her in even greater danger…
In England of 1811 Queen Charlotte may be Regent, but the fate of women—particularly Fallen women—can be particularly harsh. To avoid the fate of others of her kind, Sarah Tolerance works as an Agent of Inquiry, using her wits and her skill with a short sword to find lost trinkets and wastrel husbands. But sometimes her cases are not so simple.
When a fallen woman's life savings is stolen, Miss Tolerance is asked to find the culprit. But what begins as a simple case of swindled funds soon turns to murder.
As the investigation twists, and more bodies are discovered, Miss Tolerance and her friend and erstwhile suitor, the magistrate Sir Walter Mandif, find themselves untangling a web of passion, deception, and madness…
Miss Sarah Tolerance may be a Fallen Woman, but she refuses to take the path decreed for her by English Society in the year 1810. Instead, she becomes an Agent of Inquiry, hired by those of means in the court of Queen Regent Charlotte.
Expecting to specialize in finding lost trinkets and wastrel husbands, her skills with pistol and sword — and her sharp wit — lead her to more complicated cases.
Her newest case is one such puzzle: who killed the Chevalier d'Aubigny? The French émigré was beaten to death in his own bedchamber, windows and doors sealed tight.
But the Chevalier had more enemies than he had friends, and even his friends had cause to wish him dead. Miss Tolerance's search takes her from the lowest brothels of the seedy London underworld, where men go to indulge their more aggressive desires, to secrets hidden within the Royal Family…
Welcome to Miss Tolerance's Regency London.
For a Fallen Woman and Agent of Inquiry, a young matron of quality is not the usual client. But when such a woman asks Miss Sarah Tolerance to find her sister, Miss Tolerance can't bring herself to say no. The girl has vanished from under her family's roof, apparently bent on elopement with a mysterious stranger.
Like, and unlike, Miss Tolerance's own scandalous elopement years ago.
Haunted by the similarities between this girl's story and her own, Miss Tolerance is determined to reunite the girl with her grieving sister. But there is little to go on, only an assumed name and a small portrait. And—despite her client's urgency/anxiety--Miss Tolerance soon discovers there are people who would do anything to see the girl never returns home.
As she digs further the mystery surrounding the young woman—so like and yet unlike herself—forces Miss Tolerance to confront her own past, and to question what her future may hold…
