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In the trying art of balancing investigations and love, a detective must determine his priorities when faced with dangerous circumstances that could threaten everything he holds dear.

As the leader of the Imposters, an elite private investigative firm, Lord Yates Fairfax has made an art of concealing his identity. But when his newest client, the beautiful Lady Alethia Barremore, is shot while leaving their meeting, he throws caution to the wind and rushes to her aid. Though Lady Alethia thought she was only looking for her missing former nanny, she has clearly stumbled upon something much more dangerous.

Lady Lavinia Hemming suspects her longtime friends hold more secrets than they’re willing to admit, and when she stumbles upon the truth that they’re the esteemed Imposters, she recruits herself into the firm. While she is happy for the distraction of an investigation, Lavinia’s own family secrets continue to haunt her. And the one thing bringing laughter back into her life–her friendship with Yates–lands her squarely on the disagreeable side of her best friend: his sister.

Tormented by a past she doesn’t dare voice aloud, Lady Alethia does what she can to help her handsome host, her new friends, and the investigators. But as clues lead them deeper into the dark side of society, Alethia, Yates, and Lavinia learn anew that the gentry isn’t always noble . . . even as they fight to hold fast to their own honor.

Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award-winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books . . . . to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.

The front door burst open, which jolted Lavinia and made her lose her fake place in her stage-prop book. Yates? Certainly anyone else would have knocked, and Yates was the sort to burst into a place without warning, but it seemed a bit boisterous even for him. She tossed the book aside and surged to her feet as all expectations for a quiet afternoon crashed to bits.

Yates, yes. He strode into the room with a look she’d only seen on his face once before—when he stood in the line of her mother’s weapon, ready to die if it meant helping others get to safety. But this time, he carried a figure in his arms, who not only lolled unconscious against his chest, but whose lovely white day dress had gone crimson with blood in three different places.

Vaguely she noted that the front door closed again, and James Parks ran in behind Yates, no room in his expression for anything but worry. “What about Dr. Sterling?” he asked. “He’s trustworthy.”

“His wife’s one of London’s fastest-tongued gossips.” Yates moved directly toward Lavinia—no, toward the sofa. “Do you mind, Vinny?”

For a single second, she blinked, no idea what he meant. All she could think was that he hadn’t called her Vinny since they were five years old, when her mother had threatened to forbid him from playing with her and Marigold if he dared to use such a horrid nickname again. Then she realized he needed the sofa for whoever the unconscious woman was, and she leapt out of the way, muttering something incomprehensible like “Yes, sorry, here, what?”

James had darted around her and was arranging pillows in a way that made no logical sense whatsoever. “Dr. Jaffrey?”

“On holiday in the Med.”

“What about Keats?”

“Hmm.” Yates eased the woman down onto the cushions. She didn’t so much as stir. “Yes, he’ll do. And Butterfield at Scotland Yard—no one else.”

“Right. I’ll ring them both up.” James darted from the room, not so much as glancing Lavinia’s way.

Understandable. She darted to Yates’s side and looked down. Her throat went tight. That wasn’t just any girl. That was Lady Alethia Barremore. “Yates?” The question ended on more of a hiss than she’d intended, but what was she supposed to do? He’d said he was stepping out for an appointment, and he returned an hour later with a bloodied daughter of a viceroy in his arms. She snaked out a hand and fastened it to his arm like fangs. “Tell me she isn’t dead. You wouldn’t be fetching a doctor if she was dead, would you?”

She couldn’t be. The blood was still seeping, staining, growing. Lavinia’s head spun, her vision blurring.

“Her pulse is steady,” Yates said by way of answer, crouching down and pressing big fingers to the graceful column of Lady Alethia’s neck, wanting to verify his words anew.

It wasn’t Lavinia’s head that was spinning—it was the whole world. She had to reach out again to Yates to find something steady, gripping his shoulder this time, since he’d escaped her hand so easily. “What did you do?”

Only when she heard the words fall from her lips did she realize how they would sound. She didn’t mean to imply that he had caused whatever wounds afflicted the young lady—she knew Yates too well to think him capable of that. But how had he found her? Was he with her? Were they . . . ?

She drew her hand away again and immediately regretted it. But rather than reach out a third time, she stumbled to the nearest chair and fell into it. It wasn’t that Yates didn’t have a right to court whatever pretty young socialite he pleased. But she should have known it. Marigold should have told her. The fact that she hadn’t meant that Marigold didn’t know, and if Yates’s sister didn’t know, then it meant he was sneaking about, and that was an outrageous thought.

But then why was James with them? The vicar surely wasn’t involved in any secret trysts.

Yates shot her a look she couldn’t begin to decipher. “Where’s Marigold?”

“Resting.” She would offer to go and wake her, but that would mean leaving Yates alone with Lady Alethia, which didn’t seem proper. So instead, she got up again and moved to kneel beside him. Her throat went tight. “Are those . . . bullet wounds?”