title: Emma's Dilemma
author: Cooke, Lisa
description: Emma Murdock must hire a man to take her virginity in order to save her family from losing their home. She needs to marry a wealthy man and, luckily, she bears an uncanny resemblance to the missing countess who owns their home. But as a servant, she does not have access to genteel society, so she assumes the countess’s identity in order to mingle with the wealthiest in London and attain a match. Unfortunately, the countess was a widow and, unlike Emma, widows aren’t virgins.
  Micajah Melbourne is shocked when a beautiful woman mistakes him for a dockworker and offers him a guinea to take her virginity. He doesn’t believe the strange story she’s concocted as an explanation, but he’s concerned if he doesn’t accept her offer, she’ll hire some dangerous lowlife to do the deed. He agrees to help while he tries to learn the truth behind the lies. But the truth he thinks he’s uncovered changes his growing feelings of passion to a desire for revenge.