"Don't push me in a corner. You have no idea what I am capable of."

Diana Bainbridge, Duchess of Newcastle, thought she had found her way into the perfect life. Married to the darling of London's best and brightest, living in a gorgeous ducal estate, she perched at the height of prosperity—for a time. But now her beloved husband is dead, and as it turns out, he wasn't so golden after all. Diana is left to live in mourning and pick up the pieces of a future that had once been all but assured. She yearns to move on from her shattered dreams of happiness, but the long memory of the ton stands in her way.

Then Peter Thornton walks into her life. Tall, dark, green-eyed, and strikingly handsome, he is bored with the aristocracy and isn't looking forward to moving up in the peerage. Marriage is the last thing on his mind, until he lays eyes on a lovely young woman standing alone outside the ballroom on the first night of the London season. Their first encounter lasts only a few minutes, but it's long enough to set the gears of destiny in motion. And when they finally meet again, the heart of a strange, bitter mystery begins to unravel.