Not for nothing is Gabriel Sinclair known as the King of Hearts. This rootless scoundrel won't be tamed. His wit beguiles, his charm seduces, and he's never met a woman he couldn't captivate. As for family? He's seen enough madness in his own to last a lifetime. He shuns hopeless causes, deeper emotions, any whiff of permanence. Widowed Louisa Peabody tolerates no man's touch. Her past has shown her men are seducers and abusers. She devotes herself to helping women in need, but her clumsy efforts often end in disaster. After she accidentally saves Gabriel's life, she persuades him to help her stage a daring rescue from a prison hulk in the Thames. But it's a devil's bargain: Can she protect herself from that wild, reckless fire in his eyes? Can he care for anyone but himself? The League of Rogues series features daring English lords who risk all for their country. Hardened and deadly, they have no use for love—until it ensnares them… Excerpt: Miss Peabody was one of those thoroughly rigid spinsters who had made it her life's work to protect womankind from the evils of men. Gabriel had seen a few of those in his time, though none so embittered as she. Some man had brought her to this pass, he was certain. Under other circumstances, he might have been tempted to take up the considerable challenge of bringing a charitable light to her lovely blue eyes. He rarely minded a challenge when it came to women, but Miss Peabody would require more time than he had. Centuries, perhaps. Anyway, he had to figure out how to get to Sinclair Isle. His jailers had removed what little money he'd had on his person. Handbills offering a reward for his capture had probably gone up all over London. Had he come to his senses while at Newgate, he might have sent word of his plight to his father's solicitors, but he hadn't even recalled his name until he awoke in Miss Peabody's house. Perhaps one day he would try to clear his name, but all he wanted now was to leave Miss Peabody's bastion of bleakness, the sooner the better. "Mr. Sinclair?" Gabriel looked over the rim of his glass as Miss Peabody sailed into the parlor. She took a seat at a writing table near the chair in which he had been enjoying her father's port — one of the few things about this house he could commend. Certainly not the cuisine, for supper sat in his stomach like lead. "I have a business proposition." Miss Peabody sat stiffly in her chair, eyeing him as if he were a spoonful of bitter medicine to be endured. "I am prepared to pay you to help us free Miss Wentworth." Did she think him an idiot? "I am a wanted man," he said dismissively. "I would be a fool to do such a thing." He drank deeply from his glass, then regarded her. "How much?" "One hundred pounds." "That would not begin to cover my services." But it would help toward the cost of a small boat, and some provisions besides. And it was a hundred pounds more than he had at the moment. Still, he would not risk his life for such a sum. "One thousand, then." Gabriel blinked, certain he had not heard aright. At his silence, she frowned. "Two thousand? Three?" He stared at her in amazement. For three thousand pounds, he could buy the Royal Yacht, and more. "How is it that you possess such a sum?" "My husband was very rich." Husband? This man-hating female was somebody's wife? You were married?" "He died on our wedding trip." Her constricted features gave her the look of someone who had bitten into a sour apple. Gabriel tried to imagine Miss Peabody on a wedding trip and failed. She was a strange woman with a prickly spine, not the sort of female he would usually waste his time on, but the knowledge that she could embrace danger without a care for her own safety aroused him. He lusted — if not for her, precisely, then for the possibility of shaping such passionate clay into raw sensuality. A woman who could face down death could surely face sex...