As children, Juliet and Josephine often played the innocent game of impersonation. They were cousins, but they looked enough alike to be twins. Life and war separated them, but the years didn't dim the astonishing resemblance. Now Fate suddenly threw them together again—two beautiful, desirable women playing out a deadly masquerade. Set against the elegance, splendor and gentility of the early 19th-century South, this is a suspenseful tale of high intrigue and dangerous deception.

Set against the background of war-torn Savannah during the Revolution, this enchanting novel unfolds the saga of a family divided-and a beautiful heroine, Mercy Phillips, caught desperately between the passions of Rebel and Tory. Mercy Phillips was a penniless English orphan when Hart Purchis, wealthy young heir to the Winchelsea Plantation, rescued her from the mob. Hart did not know it then, but Mercy was to play a part in his life that would shape not only the future of Winchelsea but the whole American Revolution itself.

A Regency novel

At the height of the American War of Independence, Hart Purchis, captain of a privateer, marries the rebellious spy Mercy Phillips, rescuing her from the wrath of the British in Savannah. But it is not long before the wide waters of the Atlantic separate the Hart's ship is captured by the British and Hart himself falls under the spell of his evil cousin Julia in London. Mercy, it seems to him, is lost to him forever. Or is she? Back in Philadelphia Mercy has met a mysterious but charming young Frenchman and is now laying her own plans…

Unaware that she is the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Cley, Caroline is summoned from her vicarage home to live at the Duke's stately mansion and discovers jealousy, snobbery, illicit passion, and life-threatening intrigue