Chapter One

I have no use for whey-faced widows or limp-boned virgins.

She recalled the biting words with acidic clarity. Moments after she'd met a man who had made her heart come alive with desire, and made her wonder if all the years of longing had ended, that very same man, Julian Clay, the Earl of Westleigh, had quietly spoken those words to a nearby companion. Unaware of the devastating blast he'd delivered to the trembling soul on the other side of the column, he had chuckled at his friend's mumbled reply and set the wheels of Fate in motion.

That the words referenced her own slight impact on the notorious rake was not in doubt. Or at least that was what Merriam told herself with the cruel precision of long years of practice.

Merriam the Mouse. It was a nickname her father had given her that had lingered throughout her youth, and even into the lonely nightmare of her marriage to an older and indifferent man. Her husband had teased her with the pet name, using it when he wanted to dismiss his quiet wife and return to more important and pressing matters: matters that included his business interests, endless correspondences, and sleeping with her maidservants.

But the mouse had survived him. And tonight Merriam was determined to taste the forbidden pleasures whey-faced widows and limp-boned virgins only dreamt of -- lust and vengeance. Julian Clay would be hers, and she would show him just what a mouse was made of, then leave him wanting and aching -- the satisfaction hers alone to savor. She would bring London's most notorious rake to his knees, and then...she would walk away.

Lord Milbank's Grand Costume and Masked Ball was notorious for its decadent and outrageous delights.