A Lark's Tale

<p><strong style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Verity Lark knows everything.</strong></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>As the </span><em style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>London Daily Gazette</em><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>'s popular gossip columnist she is extremely adept at sneaking into houses assuming disguises and overseeing a vast network of spies to ensure she stays abreast of the beau monde's comings and goings. If it sometimes seems as though she was hiding behind the settee during a particularly fierce quarrel between a husband and his wife it's most likely because she was hiding behind the settee during their fierce quarrel.</span></p><p><br></p><p>But nobody knows her.</p><p><br></p><p>Writing under a pen name Verity safeguards her anonymity via an elaborately constructed alter ego. Seemingly everywhere Mr. Twaddle-Thum is in fact nowhere. He has never met with an informant or skulked in a dark alley. He simply does not exist. That is why she is so startled to discover he has recently been spotted at a variety of locations. A Twaddle-Sham is knocking about London and in such a ham-handed manner he is inciting people to murder.</p><p><br></p><p>At least that's what Verity <em style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>thinks</em><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)> is happening when she stumbles across a plot to kill him.</span></p><p><br></p><p>Or her.</p><p><br></p><p>Who is the real target?</p><p><br></p><p>Well see that's just the problem because Verity can't actually say.</p><p><br></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>For the first time in years she isn't sure of anything.</strong></p>