Touch Not the Cat

"Touch Not the Cat" is a novel by Mary Stewart, first published in 1976. Like many of Stewart's novels, the story has a supernatural element.

Plot summary

The heroine, Bryony, has the gift of telepathy, and is able to communicate subliminally with a man she regards as her lover, but whose identity she is unsure of. She knows that he is a blood relative, and assumes him to be one of her three male cousins, twins Emory and James, and the younger Francis. She returns to the UK having received a telepathic message and discovers that her father has died suddenly in a mysterious accident. Her preference is for James, but she gradually realises that the twins are plotting to steal her inheritance, and that her secret lover is a long-standing friend to whom she had not known she was related. In the book's climax, the twins attempt to murder Bryony, and she can escape only by finding her way out of a maze depicted on the family's arms, the motto being "Touch not the cat".