Regency England—the age of Napoleon and Jane Austen, of Beau Brummel and Lord Byron. Ladies wear filmy dresses and dampen their petticoats, while gentlemen duel with pistols at dawn and agonize over the cut of a coat. Fortunes are won and lost at the turn of a card, a decades-old war has turned Europe into a ravaged battlefield, and in London, a child of six can still be hanged for stealing a handkerchief.

This is the world of Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin. Heir to an earldom, disillusioned Army officer, latter-day knight errant.

A master of disguises. Sebastian moves easily from the ballrooms of Mayfair to the rookeries of St. Giles, from the exclusive men's clubs of St. James's to the dangerous docks of the Thames.

Think Mr. Darcy with a James Bond edge.