London, 1815. Miss Clara Sterling is not your standard society wallflower. When her father's sudden suicide leaves her family facing absolute bankruptcy, she doesn't weep-she calculates. Armed with a box of duplicate accounting books and an uncompromising wit, Clara realizes her only asset is a secret. And the highest bidder on her list is Mayfair's most notorious, cynical rake.
Julian Vance, the Earl of Bremerton, wears his reputation as a reckless rogue like armor to keep his tyrannical grandfather's whip out of his throat. He expects an easy transaction when a sharp-tongued lady corners him in a dark alcove at Almack's, demanding a marriage of convenience to protect her family. What he doesn't expect is a fierce, brilliant partner who treats his status like an accounting error and matches his sharp wit stroke for stroke.
Bound by a strict legal contract of civil utility and an unconsummated pact, they retreat to a freezing Sussex estate. But as the social friction of high society closed doors tightens the vice around them, the boundaries of their business arrangement begin to fracture. Beneath the glittering gaze of the ton and the Prince Regent himself, a lawless, burning heat threatens to demolish Clara's defenses.