Clayton Bannister, Earl of Carlisle, has his ideal life suddenly interrupted when he is separated from his pregnant wife and sent to a penal colony for a crime he didn't commit. When he eventually returns home after an adventurous escape, Carlisle is devastated to find that his wife and child both died during childbirth. Alastair swears revenge on Alastair Wharton, the Duke of Blackthorne, the man who sent him away. Though he planned on seducing and abandoning Blackthornes's daughter, Regina, he didn't expect to fall in love with her.
