William, the Viscount Summerfield, returning home from his worldly adventures, throws a month-long coming-out party for his sister at his Hertfordshire estate. The shopkeeper presses Phoebe Fairchild, an aristocratic woman, to ask French seamstress Madame Dupree to take on the commission. But Phoebe is secretly Madame Dupree, and because of her position in society must hide her identity. The shopkeeper has long suspected Phoebe is actually Madame Dupree and blackmails Phoebe into fulfilling the obligation of gowns to Summerfield. Will is attracted to Phoebe's spirited, headstrong demeanour and Phoebe finds Will attractive and worldly. They begin to fall in love, but he pursues her only as a lover because he believes their stations in life prevent them from marrying. Then, at a grand ball Phoebe's deception is revealed in a very public, humiliating manner that forces her to flee back to London. Will she and Will find a way to reunite and fall in love all over again?

2008-03-22 just ok

This was better that the Perils of Pursuing a Prince but not as good as her previous historical novels. Again the plot was entirely unconvincing as there was simply no way that I believed that the heroine could have been blackmailed in the way descibed especially given her family backgroung and the rank of her cousins/sister's husbands.

There was too much focus on premarital sex between the hero and heroine and it was only fairly late in the day that the consequences of same seemed to occur to Phoebe. At least there was some focus upon the difficulties as regards relations where there is an 'apparant' disparity in rank.

I like Ms London's writing style but wish she would return to a more historially realistic basis in her romances.