London, June 1829

Orphaned young and widowed after only a year, Sarah Callaway has no one in the world besides her cousin Rachel, now an orphan herself. The girls maintain a steady correspondence, Sarah from her teaching post in Bath, Rachel from her place as a governess...at least until Rachel sends for Sarah pleading for help in evading an overly determined suitor. Upon arriving in London, Sarah finds Rachel has disappeared and fears she's been abducted. Her only recourse is to contact a man mentioned in Rachel's letters, Mr. Guy Devoran.

Guy is not a fool; he and his cousins, sons of the Duke of Blackdown, have weathered dangerous escapades in the past, and he knows when he's being followed. He allows the dowdily dressed woman to catch up to him in a bookstore and is immediately taken with her large-eyed, freckled face and curvy form. Guy is moved by Sarah's story and obvious love for her cousin and vows to help her trace Rachel. Guy is an honorable gentleman to his very heart and soul and intends to deal honestly with Sarah; he will never lie to her, but he will not reveal everything he knows about her cousin.

CLANDESTINE is the latest of three connected novels after NIGHT OF SIN and GAMES OF PLEASURE, in which Guy was so intriguing a character. He more than meets expectations in the current novel. Though he was once entranced by Rachel's spectacular beauty -- what man wasn't -- he sees beneath Sarah's "plain" and unfashionable looks. To him, she's more beautiful. Sarah is honest and forthright. If she has a fault, it would be her unwavering faith in her cousin's naiveté or her own unwillingness to believe she could attract such a fashionable and handsome man as Mr. Devoran. She recognizes her newfound passionate feelings for him, so much different from the mild, companionable love she had for the late Captain Callaway, but she's not ready to think anything could come of it.

The search for Rachel takes Guy and Sarah into a world of secrets and betrayals, helped along the way by Guy's cousins and their wives, heroes and heroines of the earlier books. As an interesting sideline to the suspenseful plot, Ms. Ross includes bits about the orchid collecting craze then sweeping the English upper classes.

Though written with Julia Ross's usual wit and intelligence, the romance in CLANDESTINE didn't quite move me as much as those in the earlier novels, probably because of my failure to connect emotionally with Sarah. That doesn't mean I can't recommend it; it's still a very good book with surprising twists I haven't touched upon. Anyone who has read one or both of the others must want to see what happens to Guy. And for those who haven't, the three novels can be read in any order.

Jane Bowers