Mrs. Millwood is beautiful, intelligent, and ambitious, but London gives her no means of support except to seduce men. Love for her leads eighteen-year-old Barnwell to deceit, theft, and murder. "What are your laws," Mrs. Millwood asks, "but the fool?s wisdom and the coward?s valor, the instrument and screen of all your villainies by which you punish in others what you act out yourselves, had you been in their circumstances? The judge who condemns the poor man for being a thief had been a thief himself, had he been poor. Thus you go on deceiving and being deceived, harassing, plaguing, and destroying one another, but women are your universal prey." First performed in 1731, The London Merchant became on of the most popular plays of the century. A chronicler of the age, Theophilus Cibber called it "almost a new species of tragedy."

An engaging Signet Regency Romance of mysterious suitors and surprising secrets from the “the powerful and wonderfully perceptive”* Carla Kelly... Available Digitally for the First Time Beautiful Miss Libby Ames knew little about the man who landed unexpectedly at her country manor. Only that he called himself Mr. Nesbitt Duke, a London merchant. And after one look at Libby, he claimed he’d fallen in love. But it was soon clear that this handsome stranger was not being entirely truthful. Arriving at Libby’s doorstep was not fate, but rather an encounter of Nesbitt’s own design. Furthermore, his position in life was far from that of a merchant. His name too was a lie. But his true identity was still not the greatest mystery. For Libby had no idea of the secret longings of her own heart—or what to do next about the mystery man, and the passionate love that has taken her by shocking surprise. *New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney