Once London’s top thief, Barclay Pearce has turned his back on his life of crime and now uses his skills for a nation at war, including keeping an eye on a talented engineer working as a clockmaker. But not until he rescues the man’s daughter from a mugging does he begin to wonder what his future might hold.
Evelina Manning has constantly dreamed and worked for independence, but she certainly never meant for it to inspire her fiancé to end their engagement and enlist in the army. When the intriguing man who saved her returns to the Manning residence to study clock repair with her father, she can’t help being interested. But she soon learns that nothing with Barclay Pearce is as simple as it seems.
As 1915 England plunges deeper into war, the race is on for any technological edge, and Evelina’s father’s ideas have captured the attention of many–perhaps too many. As danger seems to encroach from every side, it may just take a reformed thief to steal the time they need to escape.