Prologue

What I liked about Nassau was that it felt like everything was painted in broad brushstrokes. Most people didn't pay any attention to the little things. That's what made it so easy to hide in plain sight. Most people didn't look past the general vibrancy—or debauchery—of the city to see the details. Me? I was just a detail.

I arrived in Nassau two days after my 18th birthday dressed as a widow—though the only death I was truly mourning was that of my father. The guise, I'd hoped, would lend me some safety on the long voyage from my home in Pennsylvania. A widow travelling alone was less conspicuous than a young woman travelling alone.

When my father passed, I had little reason left to turn down the marriage proposal of the planter from Virginia. I had no other family, and life was difficult for a young, unmarried woman in Philadelphia. Marriage was the most logical step for me. But I despised the planter from Virginia; his plantation, his wealth, his slaves were of no appeal whatsoever.

Of course, my father's death also meant I had little reason left to stay in British America. And the Caribbean seemed as good a destination as any. So I booked passage to Nassau and donned a black mourning dress.

I never thought I would end up playing the widow more than once.

Or that I would live so much in so little time.