The enemy of my enemy is my friend… except in the matter of matrimony. Then it’s a rather complicated endeavor.
When Nathaniel Hamilton, the 6th Duke of Strathfield, is given an urgent missive penned by a woman being held against her will in an asylum, he wants to ignore it. In fact, he’s doing his best to push people away. The Rogue’s Arcade club building is in ruins, a handful of his friends are injured, and he doesn’t have time for an angry miss with an axe to grind… until he sees her name. Then he mounts a rescue mission despite the injuries he sustained in the war.
Lady Mallory Lambert, oldest daughter of the Earl of Stover—that paternity is questionable—has lived for ten years in an asylum for the mentally disturbed, but there is nothing wrong with her mind. Imprisoned because she’d overheard her mother making plans to murder several peers of the beau monde, she wants to protect the innocent lives of the men in her mother’s sights, so she pens a letter and sends it to the founder of the Rogue’s Arcade.
From the moment Strathfield helps Mallory escape, they’re hunted by her mother, so he encourages the young woman to share a marriage of convenience for protection… and perhaps exploring forbidden desire. They intend to permanently bring down Lady Stover’s criminal gang in order to be free of the madwoman. It’s not a simple task, and somewhere along the way, feelings stronger than revenge are exchanged. If they want a love for the ages, they’ll need to find a way to survive—everything.