A dangerous step-brother … a letter from a Venetian bank … a secret key … and London’s most fashionable portraitist. When Sir Jerome Farrell learns that his step-siblings, Mariella and Donato Talbot, are beneficiaries of an unexpected inheritance, he decides to seize it for himself. Already struggling to protect Donato from their step-brother’s other intentions, Mariella realises two things. To claim the Montesoro legacy, Jerome must make a journey of several weeks; she also knows, as he does not, that without a certain item in her possession, he will return empty-handed. Successful, sought-after and contemplating marriage to a lovely, young widow, Leo Brandon’s commission to paint Charlotte Farrell, takes him to Surrey for three days. Had he been able to predict how those days would re-arrange his life, he would almost certainly have stayed in London. The agents of M Section, meanwhile, are interested in Sir Jerome for reasons of their own … and are therefore less delighted than Mariella when he leaves the country.