Tessa's father recently passed away in St. Petersburg where he was serving as a diplomat. The circumstances were rather suspicious. The house was ransacked and Tessa thought she was being followed. She and her younger sisters return to England and are almost immediately approached by a Russian diplomat she had been acquainted while living in St. Petersburg. He'd not paid a great deal of attention to her there but soon appears to be courting her in London.

Peyton, the Earl of Dursley, is a cool, tightly controlled, handsome with no time for courtship or interest in women other than those he choses for an occasional liaison. Then he's asked by a high ranking official in the Home Office to pretend to be guardian to Tessa and her sisters in order to attempt to find a list her father had made of people that business people who would be willing to help overthrow the Czar. That's where our story really takes off. Tessa wants no part of a guardian and shows her strong independent spirit and Peyton for the first time in his life is attracted to a woman. A beautiful, strong willed woman, a lot like himself. When Tessa's house in London is ransacked a trust begins to form and so begins a romance. All the while the Russians are coming.

While the books is rather predictable (I guessed within the first few pages where the list was hidden), and some of it improbable it is rather a quick read and holds the attention.

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