Temperance Dews works in her family's orphanage, situated in one of the worst, most dangerous areas of London in the mid 1700s. A young, beautiful widow, she carries massive guilt surrounding the death of her husband.
Lord Caire is a nobleman of sleasy repute who has come to Mrs. Dews seeking a guide to the area, offering to pay her for her help, money that the orphanage dearly needs since it lost its major patron, who died. Lord Caire is looking to find out who murdered his mistress who lived in the area.
But the woman's murder was just one of a several murders of young women, mostly prostitutes, in the area. This is a bad neighborhood, but not to the degree that locals will accept a serial killer. So Lord Caire and Temperance canvas the neighborhood, trying to get a bead on the mad killer behind these brutal murders. And since this is a romance novel, of course they fall in love in the process.
The idea that Lord Caire would choose a young chaste woman as his guide to a dangerous part of town is silly plot device, a lazy way to bring the two main characters together.
I was pretty sure the story would have lots of scenes of passionate sex between Caire and Dews and it did, but most of that was in the last quarter of the book. Which suited me because I skip the sex scenes because I find them boring and rather ridiculous. As far as the plot goes, it was pretty interesting if a tad unbelievable, especially the identity of the killer.
Here is a review of the novel by Publishers Weekly.
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