An unexpected romance emerges between a young woman desperate to keep her family’s wealth and the man trying to gain it in this first in New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards’s Regency-era series.

England, 1810: When Lady Gabriella Banning receives word that her half-brother, the Earl of Wickham, has died on his tea plantation, she faces the reality that she and her younger sisters, Claire and Elizabeth, are suddenly penniless. The family’s riches will pass to the next male heir—a distant cousin—and the Banning sisters are doomed unless Gabby thinks fast.

Which she does. Pretending that her brother is still alive, Gabby arranges beautiful Claire’s London season. She’ll keep up the pretense just long enough for Claire to marry a fabulously wealthy nobleman. But when a handsome gentleman arrives at the door and claims to be the Earl of Wickham, Gabby’s plan backfires. For if she exposes this mysterious stranger’s deceit, she exposes her own. Bound by secrets and lies, Gabby and the roguish adventurer strike sparks off each other—and soon London society is abuzz over the scandalous pair of “siblings” who appear to be falling in love.