Margaretta Seymore is with child, and her husband is receiving letters that imply that her condition is the result of an affair with the notorious actor Fletcher Cavendish. Margaretta asks resourceful Rosalind Thorne to find out who is behind the letters, but soon, Cavendish is found stabbed through the heart. Rosalind is plunged into the middle of one of 19th-century London's most sensational trials, and in this sequel to A Useful Woman, her client's husband is the prime suspect. With the help of the charming Bow Street runner Adam Harkness, she must drop the curtain on this drama before any more lives are ruined.