London, 1861. She needs a story. He needs respectability. Neither expected to need each other.
Lucian inherited more than his grandfather’s earldom — he inherited the stigma of French blood that had made his father a family outcast his entire life. Now, finally within reach of the respectability he was denied since birth, the last thing he needs is a nosy reporter writing exposés on his gambling house for Charles Dickens.
Temperance has three goals: win back her jilting fiancé, write the article Charles Dickens commissioned, and prove to everyone — including herself — that she is worth fighting for. She has a plan. It does not involve her former fiancé appearing at the gambling house with his new fiancée on his arm, nor the collision with a waiter’s full tray, nor being rescued from social disaster by the most infuriating man she has ever met.
By some miracle, that man offers her a deal.
Lucian will help Temperance transform herself — seduction lessons from an honest-to-goodness courtesan, dancing, the kind of polish that makes men reconsider their choices — if she delays her article until after he sells his gambling house. It is a perfectly sensible arrangement. It is definitely not the beginning of something neither of them planned for.
But as Lucian confronts the ghosts of his past and Temperance discovers that the woman she is becoming bears very little resemblance to the woman Ernest wanted — she begins to wonder if winning Ernest back is really what she wants at all.
A standalone Victorian romance with the warm, witty spirit of French Kiss and Gigi — featuring a reformed scoundrel learning that the life he was denied might be less important than the woman standing in front of him.
Tropes ✓ Victorian historical romance ✓ Enemies to lovers ✓ Reluctant hero ✓ Heroine transformation ✓ Bargain romance ✓ Reformed rake ✓ Love triangle ✓ Journalist heroine ✓ Standalone Trigger warning: mild swearing, open door love scene
Also from Sheridan Jeane: THE SECRETS AND SEDUCTION SERIES (historical romantic suspense) Book 0.5 — Lady Cecilia is Cordially Disinvited for Christmas Book 1 — It Takes a Spy Book 2 — Lady Catherine’s Secret Book 3 — Once Upon a Spy Book 4 — My Lady, My Spy Book 5 — Along Came a Spy
