Lucretia ‘Crecy’ Holbrook has a secret, a secret she has kept for many years. Even her dearest confident and sister, Belle, would not understand what Crecy is prepared to do, the risks she is prepared to take, to get her heart’s desire.

For Crecy is not like the other smiling débutantes; she despises poetry, thinks dancing a chore and is quite prepared to throw something at the next fool to compare her to Aphrodite.

Far more likely to return from a country walk with a badger’s skull and some bloody, injured creature than a posy of wildflowers, Crecy is drawn to the dark, the damaged, and the unlovable.

Her heart longs for one man alone, one with a wounded soul, one so dreadfully damaged that even her tender care might not be enough to save him.

Viscount Demorte is everything she dreams of.

With a reputation that covers blackmail, murder and madness, cruelly handsome Lord Gabriel Greyston, Viscount Demorte, is far more dangerous than any wounded dog, and his bite … just might leave Crecy ruined beyond repair.