A scorching Victorian-era romance featuring a stoic Scotland Yard investigator and a beautiful painter—the debut novel from 2010 Golden Heart Award winner Jillian Stone. Detective Zeno “Zak� Kennedy is considered a hero in London after breaking up a plot against the Crown. But villainy never sleeps, and he’s now after a ring of Irish anarchists plotting a bombing campaign. When he discovers that one of these treacherous lords is acquainted with his new tenant, widowed Cassie St. Cloud, he sets out to get closer to the lady. Cassie is no Victorian prude; the daughter of two prominent doctors, she is a freethinking artist and a volunteer at a girls’ school. She’s set her sights on her handsome new landlord, and soon they’re enmeshed in the most passionate affair of her life. But when she discovers that their meeting was not purely accidental, will she be able to forgive him?

She was everything he remembered, only more so. Cunning, reclusive Yard man Phineas Gunn is as skilled at capturing surly criminals as he is at charming beautiful women. But the dashing agent's latest assignment is really testing his mettle. Officially, he's investigating beguiling prima ballerina Catriona de Dovia Willoughby, a suspected anarchist. Unofficially, his attraction to his devilish former flame is hotter than ever. Unsure whether to trust the enigmatic lover who betrayed her once, Cate nevertheless enlists Finn's help to recover some priceless family jewels. Their pursuit erupts into a cross-continental adventure that begins with a double cross and crackles with secrets, lies, and sexual tension. The crime is clear-breaking and entering each other's hearts-but as the clock ticks down, who will be the first to surrender?

"The fates had been perversely mischievous of late--case in point, Raphael Lewis. . . ."
When Fanny Greyville-Nugent's father suffers a gruesome death in the clutches of his own machine, mourning his loss is not the beautiful heiress's only heartbreak. Scotland Yard is convinced he was targeted in a plot to halt the rise of industry, and Fanny's former fiance, dashing and dubious detective Raphael "Rafe" Lewis, has been assigned to the case.
For the estranged ex-lovers, bringing the notorious assassins to justice proves as tumultuous as quelling pent-up desires. Fighting peril and passion at every turn of a dangerous journey from Edinburgh to London, they are pursued by an anarchist group hell-bent on destroying her father's mysterious entry into the London Industrial Exposition.
When an astonishing discovery about the couple's failed engagement surfaces, the sleuthing duo realize they can trust no one. Rafe confesses new details about his infidelity and Fanny risks all to avenge her father's murder. But will Rafe and Fanny triumph over the pain of their past?