Betrayed by her uncle, the magically inclined Gabrielle Wentworth has been sold into a betrothal with a man who will surely be her ruin. To survive—and to avoid being labeled as a witch—she must accept the help of a five-hundred-year-old vampire who's as dangerous to her chaste body as he is to her fragile heart.  
Haunted by the woman who so resembles his dead wife, Darius MacLeod finds it impossible to walk away from Gabrielle and her plight.  So he spirits her away from London and into his Scottish castle—where he will be torn between his role as her protector and his ravenous desire to touch her in the most tender of places....