Charlotte Arkendale was quite sure she knew all there was to know about men. After all, she’d made a highly lucrative career out of steering marriage-minded women away from untrustworthy members of the opposite sex. But nothing in Charlotte’s considerable experience had prepared her for the arresting stranger who appeared on her doorstep to apply for the position of her new man-of-affairs.
He claimed to be a respectable gentleman – discreet, unassuming, ordinary to the point of being dull. Yet something about the set of Mr. St. Ives’s broad shoulders and the unrelenting determination that smoldered in the depths of his amber eyes warned Charlotte to be wary. For the strong-minded beauty was already embroiled in a wealth of danger.
Two months earlier, Miss Drusilla Heskett had become one of Charlotte’s clients. Now the women was dead, murdered in her own home, and Charlotte feared that the killer may have been one of the suitors she herself had advised Miss Heskett to reject. Still, with the right man by her side, Charlotte was certain she could uncover the truth and bring Drusilla’s killer to justice. But was the enigmatic St. Ives Mr. Right…or Mr. Wrong? What a predicament he was in! A dedicated man of science who worshiped at the altar of logic and reason, Baxter St. Ives couldn’t bloody well believe that he was actually masquerading as a man-of-affairs to get close to a maddeningly independent woman. Hunting down a murderer under false pretenses was one thing, but discovering himself at the mercy of a fierce and highly illogical passion for his new employer was throwing his life into chaos. It was enough to make a man lock himself in the sanctuary of his laboratory and never emerge.
Instead, St. Ives decides to conduct an experiment, a risky scientific exploration into the reckless alchemy of desire. But even as the daring St. Ives sets out to seduce Charlotte, the mystery that surrounds them deepens. For a twisted killer is still on the loose in London, plotting to part the lovers…or see them joined together forever – in death.