Growing up as a boy was hard enough in the eighteen-hundreds. Growing up pretending to be a girl while being a boy? Nearly impossible. Due to his father's trickery and greed, Ariella finds himself walking a thin line between freedom and a noose. He desperately wishes for one, yet the other seems much more likely to find him first. When a chance encounter with the local law occurs at the most awkward time, Ariella is forced to abandon his former life for one he doesn't understand how to live.

What is a young boy to do when he is mistaken as a girl after stealing and offered a lifeline from possibly being hung, working as a service maid? Go along with the misunderstanding, of course. Harper intends to work his hands to the bone for his new master, an older earl who was in desperate need of a replacement for two of his workers that had left earlier in the season. After living on the streets of England for several years, Harper wis ready to try and better himself and make an honest living. Unfortunately, honest is the one thing he cannot risk being.

Being a male prostitute wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Every rake in England likely dreamed of the job, but Hollem could tell them that it wasn't all sex and sweet talk. He watched liars stalk through the doors at half past midnight, their heads held high, as if they weren't cheating on their wives. Young lads would come in during the early evening, drunk off their minds. Dealing with them was one of his main duties. They always thought that just because they had money, that they could have a go at any girl they wished. Well, that wasn't how his mistress' brothel was run. He had his own clients more often than one would think. Ladies of high prestige were common during the early hours of the morning, seeking a satiation that their husbands couldn't provide. Ruined ladies also found their way to him, dreaming of a love that they could no longer find due to losing their womanhood before marriage. Rarely, he had male clients. Usually they were young lads about their twenties. They were always hesitant and quiet. Nervous. More than half of them were sent away with a short talk. The few he did take to bed were given what they had come for, but they weren't loved. That was an emotion Hollem believed to be untrue, and he considered nothing able to change his mind on that fact.