The Power...The Passion...The Incomparable Romance of Brenda Joyce The PretenderAn orphan from London's East End, a fugitive from the poorhouse, Violet Cooper was tired of sleeping on stoops and being huntry and cold. But she dared to enter a world forbidden to her and her kind. Even marriage to a gentle elderly knight and the title Lady Goodwin could not open closed doors, stop the cold stares, or hush the shadowy rumors of murder... The AristocratHe was a man of the world. The rules of Victorian society did not interest him, nor could a gauche pretender with a Cockney acent possibly turn his head. Yet Thodore Blake, second son fo the Earl of Harding, was immediately compelled by Violet--and soon found himself defending the investigation. But wedding vows were the only way to save her from a certain hanging... The Finer ThingsTwo people from different were brought together by passion, bund together by whispered accusations, and torn apart by scandal and misfortune. The world claimed they should never love each other. Their hearts claimed otherwise.