A Velvet Kind of House

Mrs Aurelia Cade has spent years making herself useful enough to survive. Then one green velvet ribbon destroys everything.When incriminating letters are discovered inside a locked cabinet at Harringay House, Aurelia is publicly accused of theft, conspiracy, and betrayal. By morning, the respectable world she served has already judged her guilty.But ruin opens a door respectability never would.At a narrow house sheltering women society would rather forget, Aurelia discovers that the evidence used against her is part of something far larger: hidden ledgers, coded ribbons, secret passages, missing women, vulnerable children, and a network of powerful men who have learned how easily cruelty can be disguised as charity.With a sharp-eyed solicitor at her side and an increasingly formidable circle of women refusing to stay silent, Aurelia begins following the records others were never meant to see.Every name brings her closer to the truth.Every door she opens makes someone more desperate to close it.And Aurelia is beginning to understand that clearing her own name will never be enough.