The Respectable Miss Parkington-Smith // Paradise Row — Paula Allardyce

Original title: The Respectable Miss Parkington-Smith.

Of course, thought Miss Parkington-Smith, her wild nephew, Francis Shelbrooke, came from the bad side of the family. Now he had married Cassandra, that scandalous actress, with her flaming red hair and sparkling green eyes. Francis' grandfather, her dear papa, would never have allowed it. But what Miss Parkington-Smith does not notice is that the London of 1750 is not what it was when she lived with and cared for dear papa. Around her neat little house have sprung up slums, filled with highwaymen, cut-throats and prostitutes. A brutal outside world, about to burst into the elderly spinster's life with terrifying violence. And that is when her disreputable Shelbrooke relatives decide to lend the respectable Miss Parkington-Smith a hand. They see that her dogged respectability could prove the death.

Vibrant, titian-haired Cassandra adored her husband Francis Shelbrooke. Not only had he taken her from the stage and made her mistress of his elegant home in Hanover Square, but he pleasured her in ways that none of her dozens of former suitors would ever have dreamed of. And yet, only six months after their wedding, Cassandra knew their marriage was on the brink of ruin. Their wills were too strong for either to force the other in submission, their passion too great for compromise. But all at once they found themselves caught up in a dangerous affair of intrigue and violence that led them far from the fashionable world of the ton to the sordid depths of London's criminal netherworld -- and on Paradise Row, where rogues and cutthroats gathered, they found themselves fighting desperately for their lives... and their love....