A lady does not smoke cheroot. She does not ride astride. She does not fence or attend duels. She does not fire a pistol, and she never gambles at a gentlemen's club.

Lady Calpurnia Hartwell has always followed the rules, rules that have left her unmarried—and more than a little unsatisfied. And so she's vowed to break the rules and live the life of pleasure she's been missing.

But to dance every dance, to steal a midnight kiss—to do those things, Callie will need a willing partner. Someone who knows everything about rule-breaking. Someone like Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston—charming and devastatingly handsome, his wicked reputation matched only by his sinful smile.

If she's not careful, she'll break the most important rule of all—the one that says that pleasure-seekers should never fall hopelessly, desperately in love.

While I usually don’t read Historical Romances, I have to say that lately I’ve been really shocked at the good historical romances I’ve been reading, including this one. I was totally intrigued in reading the synopsis on the back because one of the things that I don’t like about historical romances is how the main lady is so dependent and how timid and shy they are. But this was not the case with this story, though in the beginning our main character Callie spent her beginning years up until she turned 28 being just that, she then decided to take her life in her own hands and decided to start living by her own rules. And so she devised a list of all the things that she wanted to experience in life, not giving a care to her reputation or what others would think of her. In comes the devastatingly handsome Gabriel St. John Marques of Ralston to help her in her quest to find the real Callie. We are thrown into a high paced romance between the two as each of them find what they are really looking for in life thorough the adventure of accomplishing every task on Callie’s list. The romance was so hot and steamy and the relationship between Gabriel and Callie had me so engrossed in the story that I couldn’t put it down; I had to know how Callie was going to accomplish the next task and how Gabriel would factor in helping her. I loved reading how Gabriel slowly fell in love with Callie and how Callie found her independence. The historical time period only enhanced the plot line, giving added intrigue and dept to the story. The plot was interesting, the characters compelling and the romance hot; with all those factors this was a wonderful well told story. I would defiantly be reading more historical romances and would recommend this book!!