After Elsbeth, Countess Mercer's husband died fighting the French on the Peninsula, the young widow hoped to quietly spend the rest of her days with her uncle and his two spirited daughters. She never expected to find herself at the center of a very public scandal. An exhibition of a painting titled The Nude that looks shockingly like Elsbeth has set all of the tongues in Regency London wagging. This isn't the first time the painter, Dionysus, has caused havoc in her life. Though she's never met him, she fell hopelessly in love with him through his haunting landscapes nearly a decade earlier. Like Cyrano de Bergerac using his poetry to lure a woman to love another, Dionysus used his paintings to trick Elsbeth into marrying the wrong man. She refuses to let him hurt her again. She vows to find him and force him to prove her innocence. Nigel, the Marquess of Edgeware, a reclusive but powerful figure in the ton has connections with Dionysus and reasons to protect the artist's true identity. Soon after Elsbeth begins searching for Dionysus, Nigel abducts the feisty widow and insists she accept his help. When she stubbornly refuses, he decides that seducing the lady just might be the swiftest and most effective means of diverting her attentions. Thanks to her unhappy marriage, Elsbeth is wary of men. While Nigel's playful flirting amuses her, she thwarts his attempts to draw her closer until one moonlit night when she is caught breaking into Nigel's study. Suddenly, she discovers she's torn between the artist who owns her heart and the man who can set it free.