Oh, dear. Is that the Marquess of Ware enjoying a pipe in the very same upscale opium den as Verity Lark? It is, yes. Wonderful. Now she must inform her suitor, Colson Hardwicke, of his father’s unsavory habit—which means she will have to reveal that she herself had been partaking in the very next berth. He will understand. Once she explains that the den is above the fish seller whose poppy trade she has been monitoring for months, he will totally get it. As London’s most intrepid reporter and dogged gossipmonger, she is duty bound to get to the bottom of the mystery. What Hardwicke might find a little harder to accept is why she was kissing the marquess in a darkened room during a fashionable society affair. That is a slightly more complicated story. Alas, with a killer stalking her, she might not have a chance to tell it.