Arcane Society Series, Book 1 Second Sight / Amanda Quick / 390 pages

Also by the author Jayne Castle / Janye Ann Krentz. Venetia Milton is a photographer and her family is having financial problems ever since her father died and one of his retainers ran away with all his money.  Venetia’s of an age to be considered on her way to spinsterhood when she gets once and a lifetime job for the Arcane House, a secret society, in which she was hired to photograph some artifacts from an old alchemist’s collection.  Gabriel Jones, her employer has this strange mystery about him that draws Venetia to him, and although she might be destined for spinsterhood it doesn’t mean she can’t enjoy some time with Gabriel while in the remote Arcane House away from society, and so she sets up to seduce Gabriel for a night not to forget.  Only as the job is coming to a close the house is attacked and when Gabriel gets Venetia out safe she doesn’t know what’s happened to him. The paper announces his death and in honor of him she takes is last name when the money his job provided allows her family to move to London and open her own gallery. It’s safer and more respectable to be a widow photographer than a spinster.  Only Venetia’s fake husband has come back from the dead and is now affecting her life in London. Gabriel Jones had faked his death to draw out the attackers from that night at Arcane house and now the attackers might come after Venetia thinking she really is his wife.