At not yet one and twenty, Emma Poundstone, a proper young lady from the Cotswolds has fled to London’s barbarous East End to escape the hideous future her disreputable uncle has concocted. Alone and near destitute, she makes a scandalous bargain with a rakish duke that awakens her sensuality and threatens to break her heart.

Giles Fairmarch, Duke of Wexham, is firmly convinced that love only brings misery, so he conducts his life in a manner guaranteeing its avoidance. Mistresses. No attachments. Clear contractual obligations on both sides. But Emma’s vivaciousness and innocence rattle him to his core. He is someone different with her.

And as Emma slips into every corner of his life, chipping away at each wall he has constructed around his heart, Giles is forced to consider whether he can have all he craves from her without offering up the love he so distains.