He needs a wife...

Manchester industrialist William Rose was a poor lad from the slums who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, but in order to achieve his greatest ambitions he must become the epitome of Victorian respectability: a family man.

She has a plan...

But the only woman who's caught his eye is sophisticated beauty Octavia Marshall, one of the notorious ladies of Carson Street. Though she was once born to great wealth and privilege, she's hardly respectable, but she's determined to invest her hard-earned fortune in Mr Rose's mills and forge a new life as an entirely proper businesswoman.

They strike a deal that promises them both what they desire the most, but William's a fool if he thinks Octavia will be a conventional married woman, and she's very much mistaken if she thinks the lives they once led won't follow them wherever they go.

In the third instalment of Rachel Brimble's exciting Victorian saga series, The Ladies of Carson Street will open the doors on a thoroughly modern marriage ? and William is about to get a lot more than he bargained for...