Lie by Moonlight by Amanda Quick

Miss Concordia Glade is a teacher brought in to teach four young girls in Aldwick Castle. But her suspicions about who the girls are and why they are being taught, is sadly confirmed by the girls own reports and observations. To save her bright and talented students. Concordia and the girls constructed incendiary devices to set fire to parts of the Castle while they made their way to the stables to escape.

On the way there, he was forced to kill one of the thugs who worked there who would have barred their way, and ran into another man, Ambrose Wells, a private inquiry agent looking into the disappearance of another woman. He helped them escape and asked Concordia for details of what had been going on at the castle. By exchanging information, they discovered that the girls had been destined to be high-class courtesans, and that they were to be auctioned off by a man named Alexander Larkin, who had set up the situation in the first place.

But Larkin is a lord of the underworld, and if he catches Miss Glade or the girls, he will kill her and steal the girls back- maybe even kill them, too, if they become a liability. So Wells takes Concordia and the girls back to his home base- a luxurious house owned by a friend of his named Mr. Stoner. Concordia is a bit suspicious of the circumstances of him having such a house, but it's clear there is nowhere else for them to go to be safe.

As soon as they settle in, he speaks to Concordia again, and finds that she is the daughter of a pair of freethinkers who were married to others, but left their spouses to start a community of their own. They died when she was merely sixteen, and thanks to their beliefs, she was educated as few if any women were, but with no money, and the community her parents had founded collapsing, she was forced to find employ as a teacher.

But because of her background, people assumed she had the same standards of free love as her parents, and she was forced to teach under an assumed name. When her real identity was discovered, she was forced to take the job that Larkin offered. But Ambrose is in no position to cast judgement on her- for he has a past as well, as the son of a gentleman thief turned real thief to survive when his father was murdered.

If it wasn't for his friend, Mr. Stoner, he would have remained a thief and a lawbreaker. But when he attempted to rob Stoner's house, the man caught him and after a discussion, offered to teach him a Martial Art known as Vanza- and Ambrose did well at it. So well that he was even tattooed with the Vanza Sigil- a flower.

Ambrose is attracted to Concordia, and when he kisses her after a daring midnight raid on the offices of the woman who ran the employment agency that was used to hire both her and the girls' former teacher, she realizes that she is attracted to him as well- after having thought that he and Stoner were "special friends". But with the four girls electing to become their chaperones, how will the two of them be able to have a modern-free-thinking romance with four very interested young women with a taste for sensational novels watching over them? And when Larkin turns up dead, they can't rest until they discover who killed him, and who among his associates might still want the girls for their original purpose...

I loved this book. I loved the characters, especially Ambrose Wells and Concordia Glade, both of whom are so strong, and very much unlike the historical characters that usually populate other period romances. Both characters are full of the new ideas pulsing through society at the time, from the free love beliefs of Concordia's parents, to the strange martial arts that both Ambrose and Mr. Stoker know, to the belief that educating women as well as men is praiseworthy- something that Ambrose and Concordia both share.

I love the way he never tries to protect her from herself, but trusts that she is able to take care of herself, mainly because she is. But once he realizes he cares for her, he goes for their relationship and never looks back. And she feels the same, even as her students try to protect her from being "ravished", which led to many amusing scenes, especially when Ambrose puts the ball in her court and tells her she will have to propose to him. But even amidst this amusing background, the thread with Larkin remains deadly serious, so the comedy provides relief from scenes of murder and other evil acts.

And through it all, we have Ambrose and Concordia, two strong people with strong personalities who are falling in love with each other. It's not so much if they will end up married to each other, but how, and if each of them will get to live out their dreams that occupies most of the ending to the story. This is a wonderful book, and I loved the ending. It is possibly my favorite Amanda Quick book- and may be the precursor to her new "Arcane Society" novels- in story form anyway. Highly recommended.