The beautiful Marisa Fitzgerald, heir to the title of Derran, did not think to doubt the king’s right to find her a husband, an equal in birth and nobility, she was only surprised that no one warned her that the groom was brutally mutilated. Maryse knew what loyalty and honor were, and the fact that Cameron Alistair Buchanan, her husband, the new Earl of Derran, suffered for the king only added to his attractiveness in her eyes. The girl dreamed of becoming Cam's faithful wife, creating a happy family union, giving birth to children... Cameron could not believe that the wondrous beauty was sincerely happy to call the mutilated cripple, from whom his own mother recoiled in horror, her chosen one. He was sure that the young wife’s readiness to accept him was a complete pretense, contemptuous condescension towards a pathetic freak, and he completely isolated himself from his wife with ostentatious coldness and indifference. But the hot blood of the Fitzgeralds did not allow the rejected newlywed to come to terms with the fate of an abandoned wife, and Maryse was not going to deviate from her plan: she would take possession of this man and she would submit to him, and their mutual surrender would become their common victory!