Time's Fool — Patricia Veryan

HE FEARED SHE WAS A WANTON, AND SHE'D HEARD HE WAS A LIBERTINE....

Captain Gideon Rossiter, his handsome face pale from his war experience, returned to England after six years to find naught as he had left it. His father was accused of bank fraud, his family ruined and disgraced -- and his betrothal to the enchanting green-eyed Lady Naomi Lutonville broken off by her disdainful papa. Barely out of the schoolroom when he last saw her, she had been in his dreams ever since.

But Naomi, now the toast of London, had heard horrid rumours of Gideon's dalliance abroad and would have none of him... though her heart beat prodigiously fast whenever he was near. And though the gossips held his spirited lady to be a scamp and a flirt, Gideon strove in vain to resist her charms.

Yet first he was resolved to unmask the foul conspiracy behind his father's downfall. And when he and Naomi were imperilled by highway robbery and threats concerning a mysterious jewelled chess piece, the dark threads of intrigue and even treason would have to be untangled before romance could truly blossom....