From New York Times bestselling star Mary Balogh-and the beloved author of Longing, Silent Melody, and Beyond the Sunrise-comes a ravishing novel of passion and duty, love and menace…. Lifestyle has trained Lucas Kendrick, Duke of Harndon, a heart is a determined liability. Betrayed by his elder sibling, rejected by his fiancEe, banished by his father, and shunned by his mom, Luke fled to Paris, where he became one of the most sought-after bachelor in trendy society. Ten years later, fate offers about Heartless brought him back home to England as head of the family members who turned down him. Unwilling simply because he is to be involved with them, he must suppose responsibility for his more youthful siblings, the family members estate he once loved-and the succession. He faces the prospect of marrying with the greatest reluctance-until he sees beguiling Female Anna Marlowe across a ballroom one evening. Anna, far from being the bright-eyed innocent Luke requires her for, is certainly no more a stranger to the shadows of a painful past than he is. But also for her, relationship cannot so very easily solve what is wrong in her life-not whenever a tormentor stalks her to the doors of Bowden Abbey, where Luke and Anna must figure out how to trust in each other or risk any opportunity they may have for a content future.