Rusia, 1870. Anastasia Kaptereva es acusada de asesinar al rico príncipe Mijaíl Angelovsky, con quien iba a casarse. Enfrentada a la perspectiva de una ejecución segura, decide escapar a Inglaterra, donde consigue un trabajo de institutriz. La niña a la que debe educar, Emma, es hija de Lucas Stokehurst, quien perdió a su mujer en un incendio. Lucas vuelve al amor gracias a Anastasia. Ella, además, encuentra una promesa de protección para cuando su pasado la alcance.

This is my least favorite Kleypas book. Russian 18 yr old girl escapes from a Russian prison to London and hides with a cousin. The cousin gets her a position as a governess to a wealthy Lord Stokhurst in the country. She bonds with his 12 yr old daughter but he's unlikeable and overbearing. Eventually, he falls in love with her and the inevitable happens, she found out and kidnapped back to Russia. I found myself skimming through large portions of this book. ( )

Escaping prison for a crime she may or may not have committed but unsure due to amnesia, the heroine flees her native Russia to her cousin living in London. There, she is thrust upon the family friend who has need of a governess for his teenage daughter. The hero is much displeased with the arrangement and vows to send the attractive but dangerous woman on her way as soon as she is deemed unfit. Unfortunately, the heroine takes to the young girl and all of those around her especially the hero himself. A widow still grieving the death of his wife and the lose of a hand in the fire that took her, he's torn between his wife's memory and the beautiful young girl who's captured his attention as no other woman has. At first he is mean and harsh and altogether unwelcoming. He does and says things to hurt her but immediately feels guilty for it. He does it to push her away; to distance himself from her but no to avail. I loved the fact that though he is an amputee, he never dwells on the loss. He's not the brooding tortured figure and at times I forgot he was evening miss a hand because it was never a big deal to the characters or the story. The heroine is waif of a girl, petite fair skinned and possessing some paranormal psychic abilities. She lives in constant fear that the brother of the man she's convicted of killing will find her so she hides who she is, living as a lowly governess when in fact she is royalty and is used to silk and pearls. But she is kindhearted to a fault, a saint to those around her but innocent is the ways of men and horribly prudish at first and skittish around the hero. He is defiantly aggressive. He pushes her away one moment but draws her in the next. He is possessive and defiantly has a darker side to those who cross him. But he's loyal and will absolutely anything for those he loves. I really liked this book. It had a lot of heart and my goodness the hero's daughter was a riot. She's bold and sassy and funny and there is a hint that she will get her own book with the villain has the hero. That's another thing I loved about this story, the whole book is spent with the cousin being this boogeyman who's relentlessly pursuing the heroine but in the end, he's a victim as well. He isn't cruel or anything like the heroine feared him to be and I can't wait to see if he's in the next book. I found this book to have quite a lot of sex scenes, I would venture to say maybe too much. And the characters were in love by half way through the book. I prefer to have the anticipation of will they won't they drawn out a bit further, it adds to the tension. But I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This author is a new favorite- defiantly. ( )

Půvabnou ruskou šlechtičnu Tašu nutí rodina ke sňatku se zhýralým aristokratem. Dívka se zdráhá, ale vývoj událostí vezme nečekaný obrat. Nastávající ženich je těsně před svatbou nalezen mrtev a Taša se nedokáže ubránit obvinění z vraždy. V předvečer popravy se jí díky lsti podaří uprchnout z vězení, aby unikla oprátce za zločin, který nespáchala.

Za pomoci strýce uprchne do Anglie, kde začne pracovat jako guvernantka v domě ovdovělého lorda. Poprvé v životě poznává, co je to být šťastná, ale po svatbě na ni dopadne další krutá rána osudu: najde ji bratr zavražděného šlechtice a unese ji do Ruska. Tam je Taša znovu uvržena do vězení, a zatímco čeká na soud, klade si spoustu znepokojujících otázek: Najde se skutečný vrah? Pokud ne, mohla by být znovu odsouzena k smrti? A přijde jí její anglický manžel na pomoc? ( )

The book starts out promising but after the first third or so I found my mind wandering, bordering on being bored. The action in the last part was too little and too late, and the situation was resolved far too fast and easy. ( )