Back cover: Lydia Mohun was the darling of the London theater, the consummate mistress of her art, and a beauty wise in the ways of the world and the flesh. Phoebe Lackland was Lydia's niece, barely emerged from the cocoon of her wealthy, sheltered girlhood, making her first entry onto the stage of her first discoveries as a woman. Both shared just one thing -- Richard O'Hare, sinfully handsome, boldly virile, Lydia's partner in unbridled sensuality, Phoebe's irresistibly seductive lover, and his own coldly calculating master.