Heart pounding, Camellia shivered in the back seat of a hackney cab. Bloody, bloody, bloody misfortune. What was worse—that she had been in bed with the devil, or that he still held her heart?

Her feather mask fell onto her wrinkled lap. She touched her bare cheeks in nameless horror. How long had the ties been loose? Had the mask been sliding down her face as she fled through the crowd of merrymakers? Did any of the revelers recognize her as she ran past them with her gown undone?

Good grief, had Wainwright recognized her? What was she supposed to do now?

She twisted in her seat, grappling for purchase on the silk-covered buttons lining the back of her bodice. It was impossible. Her gown simply could not be fastened without the aid of a lady’s maid…

Or of the gentleman who had unbuttoned it to begin with.

She slumped against the side of the carriage and covered her face with her hands. Of all the people to fall so recklessly for, why did it have to be Lord Wainwright? Why couldn’t it have been… a cobbler, a chimney sweep, anyone else in all of London but the one man she could not abide?

She halted the hack a full block from her home so that her neighbors would not see her race up her front steps with her spine bared to the moonlight. Instead, she hurried through the hedgerows and the shadows and slipped through a servants’ entrance at the rear.

Careful not to disturb the sleeping hall boy, she managed to sneak up the stairs and into her private bedchamber without awakening anyone in the household.

But her troubles were far from over. They were just beginning.

She sank onto the padded stool before her vanity table and reached up to remove her teardrop earrings.

One. She only had one. A gasp of panic tangled in her throat.

Then she realized an earring was the least of what she’d lost.

With shaking hands, she tossed her mask and the sole remaining earring onto the vanity and bent her forehead to its otherwise neat surface.

Nothing else in her life was neat or tidy. This was more than a mere pickle. Now she not only had to turn down Mr. Bost’s proposal… she couldn’t marry anyone, ever. She was ruined.

And the one man who should be obligated to take her was the one man she could never accept.

Even if she forgave him for his remarks to her sister, Lord Wainwright would still be the most celebrated and infamous rakehell in all of England. His deeds were as thoughtless as his words.

Camellia’s limbs shook. She would rather be a ruined spinster living with her parents into infinity than lie alone inside a sumptuous earldom while her promiscuous husband warmed someone else’s bed.

What on earth had she been thinking? Lord Wainwright, of all sinful creatures. The man was such an unrepentant libertine, his naked rear was recognizable by a birthmark she hadn’t even spent enough time with him to see!

Distraught, Camellia pushed away from her vanity table and threw herself face up onto her bed. She rubbed her face with her hands and wished more than anything that they had never been discovered.

An hour ago, she had believed Lord X to be the most exemplary gentleman in all of London.

An hour ago, baring her soul and her self to him had seemed the most perfectly natural thing she could do.

An hour ago, she had been utterly, recklessly, hopelessly in love.

She rolled over to bury her face in her pillow. Who was she fooling? She was still tied up in knots, blast the wretched man.

The nights they had shared. The bonds they had made. Physical, emotional. The closeness she had felt before she’d known who he was.

Before she’d realized it was all part of a well-practiced game.

Her throat stung. Blast it all, no. She would not cry over him. He did not deserve it.

She pushed herself up into a seated position to pluck the pins from her hair, mussed from Wainwright’s strong hands as they made love.

Camellia swallowed. Best not think of him, if she could help it. She would concentrate on one moment at a time. Brushing her hair. Readying herself for bed. Facing her looking-glass in the morning. Hoping she had not been recognized in her half-dressed flight from the masquerade.

Her chest tightened until she could barely breathe.

The best she could hope for was not to end up a caricature in the scandal columns and have her one moment of mad passion ruin the lives of the rest of her family.

What had she done?

Panic flooded her anew. She desperately wished she could escape to her river rock. The one tranquil place where she could still find peace and serenity. Forget she’d bedded the Lord of Pleasure. That her mask had fallen even as she fled from her mistake.

But of course she could not. If she had been spotted, if her name was now on everyone’s tongues…

Camellia could never leave her house again.