Regency Hearts: The Season's End

The London Season of 1812 opens under a sky the colour of watered silk, and you enter it with a dowry that exists only in rumour and a father whose gambling debts are one bad hand away from taking the roof off your family's estate. Marriage is no longer a matter of inclination. It is arithmetic. Every ball is an audition, every dance card a ledger, and every eligible gentleman a possible reprieve. But the ton is not only a marriage market. Beneath the glitter of Mayfair, the ballrooms have become a battleground for international espionage. One of your most ardent suitors is a French spy passing ciphers through the diplomatic pouch; another is a ruthless agent of the British Crown hunting him. You discover this the way any respectable newcomer would—by overhearing the wrong conversation behind the right curtain, and by recognising your own name in it. Now you are an unwitting double agent, carrying stolen military ciphers folded inside a fan that has been admired by half the peerage. The Frenchman offers you the fortune that would save your estate. The Crown's agent offers you protection, and something far more dangerous: the possibility of choosing a life instead of a transaction. Meanwhile the Season advances, and with it the certainty that a misplaced dance card could lead to the guillotine. Blackmail your way to security, or risk scandal and treason to follow your heart? In this Season, love is a gamble played against the clock, and the most dangerous weapon on the dance floor is a whisper delivered at exactly the right moment. The orchestra is tuning. Your next partner is already bowing.