In the days of Regency England, Beau Brummell stood as the uncrowned king of genteel Society. Whatever he wore was the height of fashion. Wherever he went was the place to be seen. And the last place one would expect to find him was in the middle of a murder mystery.

After one too many distasteful meals at his usual gentleman's club, Beau Brummell opens his own named Watier's. It isn't long before the club's exquisite cuisine and high gambling stakes attract London's aristocracy to Beau's doors. But the fashionable establishment becomes embroiled in scandal when Lieutenant Nevill, inexperienced in games of change, believes he's been cheated at cards by government official Theobald Jacombe. The confrontation escalates when Jacombe makes off-color remarks about the lieutenant's intended… infuriating the young officer into challenging him to a duel.

Before Beau can talk Nevill out of this course of action, Jacombe is found murdered at Vauxhall's Pleasure Gardens—and the lieutenant is detained as the most likely suspect. Convinced of Nevill's innocence, the master of style must deduce who would want to kill a respected member of the Home Office with a supposedly spotless reputation.