A governess in jeopardy . . . and the marquis’s son who goes undercover as a housemaid to protect her. Lord Octavius Pryor leads a carefree and untroubled life, until the night he visits Vauxhall Gardens in the guise of a woman. At Vauxhall, Octavius discovers that being a female is very different from being a man. Annoyingly different, unpleasantly different, and—when he encounters the lecherous Baron Rumpole—dangerously different. Determined to teach the baron a lesson, Octavius infiltrates Rumpole’s household, where he meets the woman of his dreams: Miss Toogood, governess to the baron’s daughters. Suddenly Octavius has three pressing tasks. 1) To teach the baron to keep his yardstick in his breeches. 2) To keep Miss Toogood safe. 3) To convince her to marry him. A word of caution: This novel is a bodice ripper, and I mean that quite literally. Bodices are ripped in this book—and not in a playful or sexy way. However, I promise you that all rippers of bodices receive their just desserts.

Decimus Pryor is one of London’s most notable rakes. He saunters through life, trysting with young widows and making people laugh. But rumors have spread that his skills in the bedroom are overrated. The young widows are laughing at him, not with him, and they’re slamming shut the doors to their boudoirs. Eloïse Fortrose, widow of the late Viscount Fortrose, has no tolerance for rakes. But when Decimus rescues her from highwaymen, she discovers that there’s a lot more to this Casanova than meets the eye. What better way to heat up the chilly autumn nights than to indulge in a brief liaison? They’ll frolic between the sheets, laugh a little, restore Decimus’s standing as a rake, then go their separate ways. Eloïse doesn’t believe in love and neither does Decimus . . . but love is coming for them both, whether they want it to or not.