Knave's Gambit — Margaret Summerville

An imaginative beauty plays a spirited game of love with a libertine lord.

THE INVINCIBLE EARL

Miss Valeria Harwood had heard of the Earl of Traverhurst long before she met him. Not only was he renowned as one of the wealthiest and certainly the handsomest of lords of the realm, he was also notorious as the most scandalously successful rake ever to leave feminine hearts in tatters and reputations in shreds.

Naturally when Valeria heard that her niece Kitty, barely younger than herself, but far more foolish, was openly enamoured of the earl, Valeria had to return to the London social whirl she scorned to protect the giddy girl.

One thing, however, Valeria had not counted on. She was fully capable of guarding Kitty from Traverhurst's dangerous charm and dreadful designs -- but when the earl laid siege to Valeria's own heart with weapons that had never failed, there was no one to save her in a battle of wits and wills that she feared to lose... or to win...