From Publishers Weekly
After spending ten years in prison for killing her husband, the newly released Rachel Wade is picked up for vagrancy and brought before the magistrate, Sebastian Verlaine, Viscount D'Aubrey. Bored, debauched, selfish and quite willing to admit it, Sebastian is intrigued by Rachel, who seems old beyond her years and beaten by the world. From the first, Sebastian admits that his attraction for Rachel has something a bit perverse about it?an odd theme that runs the length of this romance set in 19th-century England. To save Rachel from another jail term, he hires her as his housekeeper, a position, everyone assumes, that includes more intimate duties. After it becomes obvious that Rachel suffered at the hands of her husband, Sebastian continues to force Rachel to submit to his own selfish desires. Gaffney tries to justify this by the fact that he wants only "to give her pleasure," while her dead husband had found "pleasure in giving her pain." The explanation is not enough to take the bad taste from one's mouth, nor does it help endear a hero who in one scene allows his jaded London friends to spend an amusing evening in tormenting Rachel about her past. Gaffney may have written a different kind of romance, but it is also unsavory.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Suave, cynical, and too handsome for his own good, Sebastian Verlaine never expects to become a magistrate judging the petty crimes of his tenants and neighbors. Nor can the new Viscount D￯﾿ﾽAubrey foresee that, when a fallen woman appears before him, he￯﾿ﾽll find himself beguiled against all reason to alter her terrible fate....

Rachel Wade has served time in prison for her husband￯﾿ﾽs violent death, but she soon discovers that freedom has its own price. For no one will offer her a second chance but a jaded viscount who needs a housekeeper. Scorned by the townspeople of Wyckerley as D￯﾿ﾽAubrey￯﾿ﾽs mistress, tempted beyond her will by the devilish lord, Rachel risks all she had to claim a life of her own...and a love that will last for all time.