When frigate Captain Buckingham Kernow-Smith encounters a sprite in a topiary garden going by the name of “Gannymede,” he quickly unmasks the character of “Rosalind” from As You Like It, played by the appealing Fanny Edwards. Three years pass. The War over, Buck encounters his Rosalind at a ball, where she has developed into a beauty. However, her guardian confides to him that she is dancing on the very edge of propriety. Buck, who has been fighting the French since he was twelve, also finds the ton confining and sympathizes with Fanny/Rosalind’s plight as a properly reared young lady. Together, they make a dangerous pair, toeing the line of propriety and scandal, indulging in a masquerade in daylight, riding together in a phaeton race, and laying plans for Fanny/Rosalind to play a role in Covent Garden Theater. When they push their fun too far, Fanny faces ruin and the demimonde. Will Buck confide his secrets and overcome his life-long aversion to marriage in time to save his fair Rosalind and live happily ever after? Can there be a happily ever after for someone as headstrong and impetuous as Rosalind?

What’s a poor rogue to do? No sooner has he become intrigued by the lonely veiled figure of a young lady sitting in Green Park, than he hears a disembodied voice inform him : “The jig is up, Ruisdell. That is the girl you’re going to marry.” He does not intend to marry anyone! Yet, when he visits a delightful and beautiful young lady in her opera box that very evening, he discovers her to be the woman in the park, Miss Elise Edwards. Not only that, a plethora of insistent ex-fiance’s attends her, one of whom is violent. Once he uncovers a connection between them that makes him honor bound to protect her, his habitual boredom vanishes. Life morphs into into an unstoppable train of events—ironic, dangerous, sweet, and chaotic—until the rogue does not know whether he is on his head or his heels. And then there was that bet he made . . .