Lady Diana Somerville was the toast of London that season, and her forthcoming marriage to Sir Geoffrey Loring was considered the match of the decade. Yet something inside her rebelled against the prospect of that cold and loveless marriage, rebelled at the thought that she was a mere pawn in the calculating game of diplomacy. How ironic that the one man who had kindled her sleeping passions was her fiancé's enemy — an American adventurer and spy!

Diana embarked on her trip to the United States filled with despair: On her return, she and Sir Geoffrey would be wed. And then abruptly her destiny was transformed by a battle at sea, for the British ship and all aboard were taken prisoner by Captain Jeremy McCullough, the same brazen American whose kiss still burned her lips and haunted her senses...