One freezing April morning, two veiled women step off the boat from Holland. They are on the run: a scheming French aristocrat, who goes by her nom de plume of Mrs Fox, and her loyal maidservant. With only a handful of gold and fearing for her life, Mrs Fox sets about establishing herslf with high society. Immoral and beautiful, Mrs Fox has always used men to support and amuse her. Trusting on her wits to keep ahead of the hangman, she manipulates others to survive: gullible Lord Danceacre, sweet Violet Denyss and degenerate predator Earl Much. Yet in the earl, Mrs Fox has met an adversary whose sadistic visciousness is a match for her own attempts to destroy him. Through a dark, quick world of liars and lechers, where infidelity and intellect cross swords with desire and death, Mrs Fox hurtles towards a horrible climax. Here is London, 1784 ...welcome to a factory of cunning.