With her four older sisters now married, it's Patience Shackleford's turn to take charge of her younger siblings' education. But given that Patience's most prodigious skill is lock picking, any abilities she passes on to her younger sisters are unlikely to provide any assistance in the drawing rooms of the genteel, especially as she has no interest in either high society, or horror of horrors… marriage. Indeed, her father the Reverend Augustus Shackleford is firmly of the opinion that the less society knows about his fifth daughter the better… When Grace and Temperance, now married to influential members of the ton, offer to take her in hand and bring her out, both Patience and her father are entirely horrified. For once in total accord, they endeavour to hatch a plan to somehow avoid the upcoming Season. But that's before a chance meeting with the enigmatic and undeniably handsome Marquis of Guildford when Patience discovers that lock picking is exactly the expertise he happens to be looking for…