The Black Moth: A Romance of the XVIIIth Century

About the book

Lord John Carstares has disappeared from respectable society after a scandal, leaving his family to live with its consequences. Under another name he makes his way as a highwayman, maintaining manners and loyalties that sit uneasily beside his outlawed position. His encounter with Diana Beauleigh draws him toward a world he can no longer enter openly, while the Duke of Andover's predatory ambitions make her safety increasingly uncertain. Heyer's eighteenth-century romance moves between country inns, fashionable society, family secrets, and confrontations in which reputation and actual conduct do not always agree. Witty exchanges and extravagant appearances give the danger a theatrical surface. Beneath that surface, the characters must decide what honor demands when publicly accepted accounts of the past conceal more than they reveal.

• Honor and reputation
• Hidden identity
• Romance and danger

Why read it

The outlaw hero's social polish gives the adventure its lively tension between public disgrace and private principle.

English text