The Duke's Secret

‘Delivers the perfect blend of fact, fiction and mystery … a rollicking good story’ Kyra Geddes, bestselling author of The Story Thief

‘A masterful storyteller, Williams brings history to life. Engaging characters and an exciting plot make this historical fiction at its best.’ Belinda Alexandra, bestselling author of The Masterpiece

She is a young maid in a stately home; he is a dashing British army officer trapped in an unhappy marriage. The pair strike up a close friendship and, just as he’s departing for war, they surrender to their passion.

Years later, he returns triumphant from defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, to reunite not only with his wife and their two sons, but also with the maid Mary Ann and their illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth. They all have to find a way through the tangle of affairs and betrayals, especially now he’s hailed as the hero of the free world with a new title: the Duke of Wellington.

Two hundred years on, in Australia, a woman meets with her long-lost father and is told the family legend that they’re descendants of a maid who worked for the Iron Duke. She sets out to prove once and for all whether or not this story is true, and what she discovers shocks everyone.

Author Biography

Sue Williams bases her fourth historical novel, on her own family’s legend that they are is descended from Mary Ann and the Duke. In a beguiling mix of fact and fiction, she tells the rollicking story of the womanising Duke, whose appetite for women knew no bounds, the maid who was powerless to resist his charms, and her own quest to prove whether this was merely myth or a blood tie with history.

Her other historical novels, Elizabeth & Elizabeth, about Elizabeth Macquarie and Elizabeth Macarthur; That Bligh Girl, featuring Mary Bligh and her father, the notorious mutiny survivor and governor William Bligh; and The Governor, His Wife and His Mistress, about Philip Gidley King and his tangled love affairs, have all proved bestsellers.

Sue is also an award-winning journalist, travel writer and bestselling author of non-fiction. She lives in Sydney with her partner Jimmy Thomson, aka crime writer James Dunbar, and their two cats.