“Therefore, we shall say the deed was yours. Understood?”

Harriet remained silent, once again forced to shoulder her cousin Bella’s disgrace. As an orphaned ward living on her uncle’s sufferance, she had no voice to protest. She had allowed the ton to brand her a “scandal-maker,” enduring their venomous whispers in the naive hope that her family would at least recognize her sacrifice.

That hope died when they framed her for the theft of a Duke’s brooch, casting her away to the cold rigors of a secluded convent.

“A scandal-maker?” Harriet whispered into the shadows. “If that is the role you’ve cast for me, then I shall play it to perfection.”

Upon her return to the capital, driven by a thirst for vengeance, she was met by the very catalyst of her exile: Duke Kailas.

“They say St. Clarissa’s transforms a soul,” he remarked, his gaze narrowing with a dangerous, sharp curiosity. “It seems the rumors did not lie.”