Frances Morley was a most rebellious young, to the despair of her worried mother, strait-laced sister, and many disconcerted suitors. It was only when Mr. Thomas Strickland arrived in the village of St.Barbary from fashionable London that Frances at last met a man whose shocking ways matched her own.

Thomas Strickland called himself a writer, as if this might excuse his rude behavior and uncommonly direct assault on Frances's affections. But when Frances's priceless bracelet disappeared, and a mysterious highwayman known as the Moonlighter began terrorizing travels, Frances came to suspect there as more to Strickland than met the eye. He might have been a thief and a cad, but he was a singularly handsome and witty one -- and Miss Frances Morley found his kind of danger far more diverting than dreary conventional romance as she plunged into a breathtaking game of intrique, suspense and startling surprise....