"The Seduction of the Crimson Rose" -Lauren Willig

As a lover of the Scarlet Pimpernel books and a sucker for a romance, I was on top of a recommendation to read The Secret History of the Pink Carnation. History, romance, swashbuckling, hunky guys: my kind of book. So much so that I recommended the book to someone else ere I ever cracked the cover. Oops. Before we met up again, I read the book and was a little shocked at the sex. I wasn't prepared for a Harlequin romance, if only because I expected more story. She was slightly scandalized that I had ever read a book like this. I held off reading the 2nd book but the story was good:

Plot: doctoral student in England studying spies of the Napoleonic era discovers proof of her theory of a Pink Carnation spy, equable to the Scarlet Pimpernel and Purple Gentian. The tales of the student and her research are told simultaneously through the series.

So I kept reading and each book had less sex. Well, here I made it to The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, the 4th book in the Pink Carnation series (yes, they all use flowers in the titles), and it had negligible sex in it. Not sure what Willig's goal is but the stories got better and the romances kept up. So now I feel justified in recommending the series.

Read Also:

I tend to lean towards Christian romance so a wonderful historical romance was Bodie and Brock Thoene's The Galway Chronicles (4 books) set in Ireland under the oppression of England.

A similar writer, though I don't actually recommend her writing, just her subject matter, is Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady.

And of course, Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel!