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CHAPTER ONE
April 1817
Thomas knew the moment Amber Sterlington entered Almack's ballroom. Not because he was watching the door, or because someone spoke her name. No. The reason The Honourable Thomas Richards knew when Miss Sterlington entered the room was because every gentleman straightened his bearing and turned his head in her direction. Simultaneously, the women in the room either narrowed their eyes or raised their chin a fraction of an inch in the feminine version of the same response. Amber Sterlington was the rage of the season, after all, and in the space of a glance and a breath, the room was changed by her arrival.

Thomas cared little for the attention society gave to her, but the truth was that Amber Sterlington was quite simply the most attractive woman he had ever seen and, like everyone else, he reacted to her arrival by standing a bit taller in case she looked his way.

In the month he'd been in London, this being his third Wednesday night ball at Almack's, he'd seen Miss Sterlington nearly a dozen times at a variety of events, and his reaction to her had been equally profound each time. When his notice passed, he berated himself for it, wanting to believe himself a man apart from such fancy. She would marry for title or money or both-everyone knew it-and as a younger son of a modest Baron, Thomas offered neither, which made his attraction toward her that much more vexing.