But a Walking Shadow

A beautiful young woman, Aphra Devereaux leaves Paris after the death of her father to live in the mansion that was her deceased sister, Lady Freya Fitzroy's home. She finds the once grand Stoneleigh is now a gloomy, decaying mansion. Additionally her sister's husband Sir Roland is now a deranged drug addict. To her surprise she finds her sister's neglected child of whose existence she was unaware.
Also a woman of dubious character appears to be managing Roland's life. The only hope she has is Roland's brother Edmund but he is away fighting in the Crimea. The society background of her young life has not conditioned her for what she experiences at Stoneleigh or the filth and lowlife of the London streets and the hypocritical upper class London Society. A dark, gothic tale of disillusionment, tragedy, loss, rape, lunacy, child abuse, and frustrated love set in Victorian England