Cuts Close to the Heart

Twins Lady Elizabeth and Sir Ariel are looking forward to their eighteenth birthday in elegant London society in 1804. Celebrations! Lavish gifts! Budding romances! Their lives seem just perfect. Well, not entirely perfect. With Papa away serving the King against Napoleon and “Maman” virtually a recluse, their imperious older brother, the Viscount Embry, now heads their family. Embry makes rules—many rules. No waltzing. No birthday ball. Perfect decorum. Silence about family matters. “We are not like everyone else,” he warns. “People seek reasons to attack us.” The twins scoff at his warnings until one of Embry’s workmen is viciously attacked and their elegant home is invaded. What is Embry involved in? And why does he let mysterious strangers—an Austrian baron and a Spanish doctor—control their lives? Elizabeth and Ariel suddenly must flee London with the Spanish doctor, Judah Halevi Nieto, as their guide. He leads them out of gilded Regency London into a new world where they meet smugglers, madams, brawlers and poor workingmen, all struggling courageously against great odds. In the center of this world stands the mysterious Judah Halevi. But who is he really? A kind mentor? A passionate lover? A courageous fighter or a sadistic torturer? Or perhaps he is all of these at once?