Time's Fool (The Tales of the Jewelled Men, #1)

HE FEARED SHE WAS A WANTON, AND SHE'D HEARD HE WAS A LIBERTINE....Captain Gideon Rossiter, his handsome face pale from his war experience, returned to England after six years to find naught as he had left it. His father was accused of bank fraud, his family ruined and disgraced -- and his betrothal to the enchanting green-eyed Lady Naomi Lutonville broken off by her disdainful papa. Barely out of the schoolroom when he last saw her, she had been in his dreams ever since.But Naomi, now the toast of London, had heard horrid rumours of Gideon's dalliance abroad and would have none of him... though her heart beat prodigiously fast whenever he was near. And though the gossips held his spirited lady to be a scamp and a flirt, Gideon strove in vain to resist her charms.Yet first he was resolved to unmask the foul conspiracy behind his father's downfall. And when he and Naomi were imperilled by highway robbery and threats concerning a mysterious jewelled chess piece, the dark threads of intrigue and even treason would have to be untangled before romance could truly blossom.... In this first compelling tale from Patricia Veryan Time's Fool, Captain Gideon Rossiter returns to England after a six-year absence with one goal in mind: to marry and settle down with his betrothed, the enchanting Lady Naomi Lutonville, the thought of whom has sustained him through many a trial of war. It is not, however, a happy homecoming that waits the captain. Rossiter is shocked to find his fortune lost, his father accused of fraud, and his family name disgraced entirely. Worst of all misfortunes, Lady Naomi's family has dissolved the engagement, and the lady herself is of no mind to ask that it be reinstated... When Captain Gideon Rossiter returns from war to England to find that his family has been disgraced and his fiancé Naomi, has abandoned him, he vows to unmask the conspiracy that brought his family down