When Anthony Morehouse wins The Ladies' Fashionable in a card game, he thinks it's piece of furniture. But he soon learns that it is actually a women's magazine. He plans to sell it to the editor, but when he sees the beautiful Edwina Parrish behind the desk, he changes his mind. Edwina was his childhood Nemesis, besting him in many competitions and winning from him a family heirloom. He's never forgotten it and so proposes another wager: If she wins, he'll give her the magazine; if he wins, he keeps the magazine and gets his heirloom back.

Candice Hern has always enjoyed escaping into the history and literature of Regency England. After years of re-reading the novels of Jane Austen and other women of the period, she by chance discovered the great Georgette Heyer -- and all her contemporary stepchildren -- and was instantly hooked.

Candice lives in San Francisco in a house cluttered with African violets, orchids, Regency-period antiques, and mountains of reference books.