After rescuing a lovely woman from an attempted robbery, Captain Lacey discovers that she is the widow of a colonel, who'd been accused of murdering an English officer during the Peninsular War. Lydia declares that her husband was murdered and that she knows the culprits' identities. Intrigued, Lacey, along with his friend Lucius Grenville, begins to investigate. He soon finds himself mired in scandals of the past and murders that are very kuch in the present. Book 2 of the Captain Lacey Regency mysteries.