The Betrayal of the Blood Lily — Lauren Willig

Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation novels are "great fun" (The Boston Globe) and "grandly entertaining" (Publishers Weekly). Now she whisks readers away to nineteenth-century India -- home to romance, intrigue, and a spy known only as the Marigold. . . .

Penelope Deveraux never imagined she'd be spirited off to India give the scandal of her hasty marriage time to die down. As Lady Frederick Staines, Penelope plunges into the elaborate court intrigues of the Nizam of Hyderabad, where no one is quite what he seems. In a strange and exotic country where a dangerous spy called the Marigold leaves venomous cobras as his calling card, there is only one person she can trust.

Captain Alex Reid has better things to do than play nursemaid to a pair of aristocrats. Unfortunately Penelope seems to have the uncanny ability to draw out the deadly plans of the Marigold and put herself in harm's way. With danger looming from local warlords, treacherous court officials, and French spies, Alex realizes that an alliance with Lady Staines may be the only thing standing in the way of a plot designed to rock the very foundations of the British Empire.