You had me at the nickname "Vicar of Vice" for Lord Chief Justice of the High Court, Cassius Gerard Ramsay. He is trying to stop sin on the streets of London. He is straightlaced and doesn't believe in anything that gives pleasure - at least the last eight years anyway. Except for the woman, he is reluctantly pining for who is his best friend's wife's good friend.

On the day that Cecelia Teague inherits a gaming hell from an Aunt, she never met and became known "Scarlet Lady" the proprietor. The establishment is raided and accused of selling women against their will to men in London. She denies everything because she doesn't know anything. She is also in disguise as the Scarlet Lady, and she lies her way through a meeting she doesn't understand. The man who is loaded this over her is none other than the Vicar of Sin, Cheif Lord Justice Ramsey.

He doesn't realize that the woman in the disguised is the person that he has been dreaming about for the last few months since he saw her, is now the owner. He yells and threatens to kill her. She is confused with the man that she is unnerved by and the version of the man doing his job because they are different. After a kiss and a bombing of the gaming hell, the truth comes out that she is the owner and the woman he wants and protects. But he is conflicted because what he wants goes publically against everything he believes.

To protect her and others, he takes them to his childhood home in Scotland. Passions flare-up, truths are discovered, and the danger follows.

I read it in one sitting, I finished it, and the sun was rising. It happens.

Tropes: Enemies/Friends-to-Lovers, Mystery subplot

TW: This is talk of women sold against their will, but nothing happens on screen and it more conversation, plot moving than anything.

I received an ARC from Netgalley and St. Martins for an honest review.