Lady Isabella Winton has waited four years to marry her fiance, but each year Lord Alexander Fitzroy, Earl of Standford, a serving officer and a reformed rake, finds an excuse to delay the nuptials. This time, with the marriage set for the next month, he tells her he received an urgent message from his Colonel. He is needed in Belgium almost immediately. He warns her it may be dangerous for her to accompany him. Isabella realizes he is bluffing, things would not change so suddenly. Brussels is the centre of a social whirl with elaborate dinners and extravagant balls. Fearing Alex may have...

Distraught with the deaths of his wife and son at the hands of a serial killer, Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Redd took a year's leave. Driven with revenge Redd returns for duty, knowing he can gain inside information to track down the killer, nicknamed the Surgeon. Out for a morning's ramble, two young boys discover a gruesome murder. Redd and his new partner DS Felicity Dove are called to the scene. They are met with the strangely mutilated bodies of a young male and female. By their side is a pile of old bleached bones. Impaled on the male chest is a message written on parchment, the...