Prologue A Widow Grieves One month after she lost her husband, Victoria took to the streets of London.In the darkest part of night, whilst the rest of the city was safely tucked away and the bulk of Society had repaired to the country for hunting season, Victoria Gardella Grantworth de Lacy, Marchioness of Rockley, strode alone through the slum known as Seven Dials. Dullness permeated her bones. Dispassion and numbness, laced with deep, gnawing grief and rage, caused her limbs to move soldierlike, one foot in front of the other. It was not only in deference to her status of mourning that she wore black from head to toe, but also to allow her to meld with the shadows, in and out, to be seen if she wished to be seen; to become one with the darkness if she did not. She wore men's clothing for ease of movement and because they smelled like her husband. She also wore them as a silent protest against the strictures of Society that demanded she sit in her dark-swathed home and do nothing for a twelvemonth. Her lips curled humorlessly at the thought of what the ton's matrons would say if they only knew. The beaver topper, tall enough to tuck her thick braid up into, had also been Phillip's. She had smelled his rosemary-scented pomade on it when she first placed it on her head.