Face Down Beside St. Anne's Well by Kathy Lynn Emerson

Susannah, Lady Appleton, is quite concerned to hear that Rob Jaffrey, the son of her housekeeper, Jennet Jaffrey, is considering leaving the University he is attending to go to the aid of her foster daughter, Rosamund.

Rosamund's French Tutor has been found dead in St. Anne's Well, a local hotspring. Shortly before she died, she found Rosamund and her two closest friends bathing in the bath meant for nobility, which they had sneaked into through a rent in the wall caused by a recent earthquake. She gently chided the girls for being there and sent them back to the house, promising to follow. But by the next morning she had not come back and been found dead.

Rosamund thinks that the woman was poisoned and wrote to Rob for help in proving it. Though, to the horror of his mother, he is ready to leave school for Rosamund, she persuades him not to and has Susannah go to investigate in his (and Rosamund's) place. So Susannah travels to Buxton, in Derbyshire, and begins to see quite quickly that there is something strange about Louise Poitier's death.

For one thing, Annabel MacReynolds is on the scene. Annabel was one of the many lovers of Susannah's husband Robert Appleby. And while her husband worked for Queen Elizabeth, Annabel worked for Queen Mary of Scots. Though in the intervening years Annabel has grown very fat and claims to have given up spying for a more settled life, Louise may have been her protegé in spying.

If nothing else, she certainly cut a swath through the men of the neighborhood, doling out her favors generously to lad and lord alike. Though Annabel claims to have left such practices behind, could it be than an excess of spying killed Louise? For the healing waters at Buxton are precious to the imprisoned Queen Mary. Could she have been planning an escape, or even just passing on information for the queen? Or did Louise die because of her antics in the bedroom rather than those at spying, the game of Kings... and Queens?

I love the Lady Appleton mysteries, for while taking place during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, they don't occur in London or any large metropolitan area, generally. Instead, they take place in the countryside, in places that would generally seem bucolic on the surface, but scratch the surface and find feuds and hatred and nastiness aplenty.

Once again, characters from past stories turn up. In fact, this book is veritably awash with them, from Rosamund herself, who is the daughter of Robert Appleby by another woman, her mother, Annabel, Rob and Jannet Jaffrey, and plenty of new characters as well.

I liked this story, for it used a same-sex romance, which isn't something one usually sees in historical romances. It's more hinted at than outspoken for most of the book, but it ends up providing the clue that unmasks the murderer. And no, the lover isn't the murderer. I found it quite refreshing that the homosexual (or bisexual) character wasn't painted as evil merely for whom they were attracted to.

I enjoyed this book a lot, and it mixes actual historical people with the fictional characters so well that it's a struggle to tell, sometimes, which is which. An explanation of Elizabethan terminology and a listing of the actual historical characters as well as the fictional preceede the story, making it easy to flip back and forward if you encounter words or people you don't know. Recommended