Lovely Katherine Carew had grown up in the sheltered paradise of her great Victorian family estate of Penvarrion. Ever since she could remember, she had assumed she would wed handsome, gallant Esmond Borleigh, son and heir of Penvarrion's aristocratic neighbors. But then into her sunlit life came the shadow of the dark, half-gypsy adventurer who as a ragged boy had adored her - and now as a virile, violent man came to claim her. And suddenly there was no one to save her...not Esmond, who had unexpectedly turned his affections elsewhere...nor her estranged father and his malicious new family...nor her own treacherous heart...as she became captive of a fate in which unimaginable danger took the shape of unthinkable desire....