Vane, Harriet (Fictitious character)

Harriet Deborah Vane, later Lady Peter Wimsey, is a fictional character in the works of British writer Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) and the sequels by Jill Paton Walsh. Vane, a mystery writer, initially meets Lord Peter Wimsey while she is on trial for poisoning her lover (Strong Poison). The detective falls in love with her and proposes marriage, but she refuses to begin a relationship with him, traumatised as she is by her dead lover's treatment of her and her recent ordeal. In Have His Carcase, she collaborates with Wimsey to solve a murder but still finds him to be overbearing and superficial. She eventually returns his love (Gaudy Night) and marries him (Busman's Honeymoon).