Young Mara Pearsall was as hot-tempered as she was highborn and as fiercely independent as she was beautiful. What was more, the shocking example of her rake of a father had set her firmly against the wicked ways of men.

Mara's father was dead now, and the English heiress chose to live in a mansion in Madrid, plunging into perilous intrigue and adventure for the cause of Spanish liberty rather than enduring the foolish social whirl of Regency London. But when her handsome, arrogant guardian, Sir Gaylord Humphrey, came to take her in hand, Mara was hard-pressed to preserve her pride and purpose. For this dashing aristocrat seemed to possess everything she had both loved and hated about her father, and suddenly Mara felt like a child again — but a child filled with a woman's dangerous emotions.