Sophie Armitage was married to an officer who died a heroic death in the Napoleonic War. His heroism got her a modest government pension and feted by the ton, but she is secretly lonely. Then his old cavalry buddies, the so-called Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, return to London. Sophie and Nathaniel rekindle their old friendship, and quickly fall into bed together. But Sophie is being blackmailed with her husband's old love letters to a fellow officer, which would ruin his posthumous reputation and the family name, and she is sinking into penury and despair. Her self-esteem at an all-time low, she can't take Nathaniel's love seriously until she deals with the blackmail situation.Meanwhile, Nathaniel's spirited ward (Lavinia, who I really like) has a 1940s-banter style love/hate relationship with Nathaniel's bff Eden.
I was glad at how sensitively everyone took the revelation of homosexuality--I have no clue how historically accurate it is, but I was pleased that no one was even slightly assholish about it. Nathaniel was very kind about how hard her husband's lack of interest in her and love affair must have been for Sophie, but did so without blaming her husband. The ending kinda dwindles away to nothing, but at least all the loose threads were satisfactorily wrapped up by then. I liked both the ladies, but didn't feel much toward the men, and I was unpleasantly suprised to realize that I'd already forgotten the romances of the other Horsemen (who come back for a few scenes in this book).