Harry Sinclair is a covert agent of the British Home Office, assigned to protect three prominent politicians in the uneasy period after the death of Princess Charlotte. Do your job well, he's been told, and there will be great rewards-career advancement, glory, all he can hope for as the son of an actor and a disgraced lady. Harry employs two personae to accomplish his mission: elderly Lord Wroth, and bookish, quiet Mr. Towne, private secretary to one of the men under threat. Everything is going according to plan, until Harry lays eyes on Lady Mariah Dunmore, the catch of the season and only child of another of the endangered men. In a chance encounter on a dark balcony, he feels her respond to him, too - but he is dressed as the cranky Lord Wroth, and back in the ballroom Mariah can find no trace of the intriguing stranger. Harry knows that's exactly how it should be, but he just can't make himself stay away. Soon he is using every trick of his trade to get close to herat the same time he is playing a dangerous game to outwit the enemy that threatens them all.