Dangerous. Wild. Reckless. Those were the words that passed through Serena Ward's mind at the moment Julian Raynor entered the gaming Hall. If anyone could penetrate Serena's disguise as a tart—and jeopardize the political fugitives she was delivering to freedom—it would surely be London's most notorious gamester. Yet when the militia storms the establishment in search of traitors, Raynor provides just the pretext Serena needs to escape to an upstairs bedroom. But Serena is playing with fire...and before the night is through she will find herself surrendering to the heat of unsuspected desires. Seductive. Fiery. Treacherous. She had used him for her own scheming purposes, then thrown his generous proposition back in his face. Julian Raynor, a man who had ruthlessly enjoyed his share of women, did not much care to have the tables turned on him. And when he discovered that the passionate beauty who had played his wanton prisoner in bed was none other than Serena Ward, the proud daughter of his bitterest enemy, he saw his chance for revenge—not only on the man who had singlehandedly destroyed his family, but on the woman who haunted his dreams.

Handsome, kind, and unassuming, Mr. Gray seemed the answer to Deborah Weyman's prayers. For once she accepted the position he offered, she would finally be safe from the notorious Lord Kendal, a man she had good reason to believe had murdered her former employer—and was now after her. But there were certain things about Mr. Gray that Deborah should have the breadth of his shoulders, the steel in his voice, the gleam in his uncommonly blue eyes—things that might have warned her that Mr. Gray was no savior, but a very dangerous man.... Too tempting to resist... Though she posed as a dowdy schoolteacher, Lord Kendal saw right through her disguise to the treacherous beauty beneath. Now, convinced that she alone can tell him the truth about Lord Barrington's murder—and the whereabouts of Barrington's young son—he coolly masquerades as the innocuous Mr. Gray. And only when it's too late for Deborah to run will she learn what it means to be at his mercy—and powerless to resist his seduction....

“Once again, Elizabeth Thornton has taken the perfect ingredients—tight plotting, strong conflict, and smooth characters, and sewn them into a seamless romp!”— Literary Times Searching for his missing wife but finding instead her look-alike, fiery-tempered Catherine Courtnay, Marcus Lytton, the Earl of Wrotham, asks Catherine Courtnay to pose as his wife in order to help his investigation. “A major, major talent . . . a genre superstar.”— Rave Reviews