Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander

Andrew Carrington is the ideal Regency gentleman: heir to an earldom, wealthy, handsome, athletic-and gay. When he decides to do his duty to his family, he wants marriage on his terms: an honest arrangement, with no disruption to his way of life. But in the penniless, spirited-and curvaceous-Phyllida Lewis, a self-educated author of romances, Andrew gets more than he bargained for, perhaps even love. And when he meets honorable, shrewd-and hunky-Matthew Thornby, son of a self-made baronet, Andrew seems to have everything a man could desire, until a spy and blackmailer tries to ruin him and his friends. The fragile understanding developing between Andrew and his bride is shattered when Phyllida is attacked, and her assailant threatens to denounce her husband if she tells. She must deceive Andrew to protect him. But Andrew discovers the truth and, devastated by his first experience of failure, seems in danger of losing his wife, his lover, his very manhood itself. Only with Matthew’s help can Andrew and Phyllida acknowledge their feelings and find their way to lasting love. “Phyllida” introduces an intrepid heroine and an engaging and sympathetic group of characters, members of an exclusive establishment for gentlemen who prefer the company of their own sex. A diverse assortment of personalities, the Brotherhood of Philander is bound together by sexual preference in a world where the law brands gay men as outlaws and leaves them vulnerable to extortion. Moving from familiar scenes of society balls, theater parties and midnight suppers, to the witty conversations, games of chance and intimate pleasures at London’s most aristocratic “madge club,” “Phyllida” takes the reader into a little-known side of Regency life. In this unusual romantic comedy, a bisexual man may make the best husband-for both his wife and his lover.