Thanks to her brother's gambling, Portia St. Claire is to be auctioned off at London's most notorious brothel—her virtue is the price for his life. Bryght Malloren once broke into a house to retrieve an incriminating letter and the woman who greeted him with a pistol looks much like the trembling woman on the auction block. Unable to leave Portia to such a fate, Bryght turns the private wager into a public game of seduction.