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London, England

Late evening, March 1816

Sitting in the finely appointed carriage, Vanessa Becket nervously bit her thumbnail—a bad habit she’d long-since eschewed. Or so she’d believed until she’d set herself on this daring—utterly- mad-I-must-be-out-of-my-mind—course.

Wiggling her feet to ease a bit of her tension, she surveyed the distinctive building poised at the end of Montpelier Row. Flanked on either side by ordinary structures, nothing in its exterior hinted at the wicked nature of what transpired inside.

As she gathered her courage to exit her conveyance and enter said building, several riders and a variety of vehicles passed the structure. To her heightened senses, their horses’ hooves clacked inordinately loud on the rain dampened pavement.

Her heartbeat—an irregular staccato behind her ribcage—whooshed inordinately loud in her ears. A shiver skittered up her spine despite the unseasonably warm spring evening. She swallowed hard against the lump that had formed in her throat.

I can do this. I must.

For who else would if she didn’t?

She had no one to defend her, to act as her champion, to demand recompense from the man who had wronged her.

Not anymore.

She was a woman alone in an unkind and often unforgiving world.

A pair of skinny cats slinked across the street, mangy ears pointed backward and raggedy tails downward. Leery and alert, they disappeared between two sturdy brick structures.

Vanessa rather knew how they felt.

Wary and watchful.

She gravitated her attention back to the structure that commandeered her interest. The front entrance swung open, admitting two approaching gentlemen attired in the first stare of fashion. At almost that precise moment, a pair of women, heads down and covered from top to toe with dark cloaks, glided toward what Vanessa had learned was the infamous establishment’s ladies’ side entrance.

So bloody typical and gallingly hypocritical.

Of its own accord, her upper lip curled a jot. Not quite a scornful sneer but a sign of her marked contempt, nonetheless.

Men needn’t hide their vices the way women must. Males could parade their immoralities and depravities about proudly, but if a woman’s indiscretions became known, she was utterly ruined.

Just as you’ll be, Vanessa Euphemia Samantha Becket, if you’re caught this night.

True, but her rapscallion stepbrother, Owen Elligon,was in there—the swine.

With my jewelry.

Just as he’d been the past fortnight.

Mayhap longer.

Vanessa had only taken to following him these past two weeks, and this was the eighth time he’d visited Fortuna—a notorious gaming and social club—in that interval. Most convenient that every time a piece of her jewelry had gone missing, he toddled into this gaming hell at the end of Montpelier Row.

Rotten bugger.

Vanessa clamped her teeth together as a wave of renewed wrath gripped her. She lowered her hand to her lap and grasped a handful of her cloak’s black satin. Squeezing. Squeezing.

Owen had gone too deuced far this time, however.

Entering her house—her bedchamber!—and stealing her jewels right out from under her nose was bad enough. She itched to slap his face or box his ears. Or punch him straight in his bulbous nose. If she’d been a man, she’d have called him out long ago. The very first time he’d touched her inappropriately and made his vulgar suggestions.

She shivered again, earning her a concerned look from her stern-faced maid.

The sapphire brooch Owen had absconded with while she’d been out this morning was the final straw. Curse the spawn of Satan’s black soul.