This is one of the most unusual and most moving romances I've ever read. Heroine, a gently-bred girl, is thrown into poverty and, unable to find any other employment, becomes a prostitute in a brother catering to upper-class clients. She becomes hero's favorite girl and he offers her a position as his mistress, under his roof. Hero's upbringing has left him half-frozen, afraid of women and terrified of being vulnerable again. He wants a woman who will do it the way he wants it done, every time (which is plain and simple - no porno stuff here). Over the course of time their relationship changes from commerce to love, and they must deal not only with their feelings for each other, but society's feelings about a lord and a whore who marry. This is one of the few romances I've read where if the love/sex scenes were deleted, the idea of the book wouldn't be the same. I liked it both as a brave attempt to do something different in a regency, and as a darn good read