With the scandalous nature of her birth to live down, Isabella Fairmont dreams of a proper marriage?even if a passionless one. She saves her deepest desires for the novel she dares to pen, wherein a handsome lord with dark powers seduces her. But then her courtship with an appropriate suitor is threatened by the sudden attentions of the reclusive Earl of Black?whose pale blue eyes and brooding sensuality are <I>exactly</i> as she described in her book.<P>Isabella tries to resist the mysterious Earl of Black.<P>Yet as he pursues her, with inexplicable knowledge of her past and kisses that consume her, Isabella fears she <I>will</i> succumb.<P>If only the earl could tell Isabella the truth. With very real, and treacherous, thieves endangering her life, Black will need to protect Isabella from the very people she trusts the most?.