When the ghosts of one's past haunt the present, that means it's time for a change...

James Shaw, the current Duke of Blackhawke, has washed his hands of society as well as people. After the war, all he wanted was to be left alone, but damn if his title and estates deserved his attention now that he had the time. Except, he didn't want to do any of that, for ghosts of the men he'd killed in the past-in the war or not-haunted him. Most days, it was a struggle merely to remain in the world, despite how detached he was.

Miss Eloise March has wanted one thing for the past three years-to find the man who killed her fiancé, Jean-Claude. Half French on her mother's side, she'd been visiting her family in a tiny village in France when the war came to their very doorstep. And that was when her life as she'd known it had ended, by violence, by terror, by intimidation, by the end of dreams. Revenge was all she had now, that and a pocket watch from the man who took her fiancé's life.

Eloise lures the duke out to Regent Park, but that's when things take a turn for the worse. As a bit of intense kissing is witnessed by a society gossip, scandal is in the offing. He has no choice but to offer for Eloise, and she has no option but to accept an engagement even though they're very much enemies. Acting like the beast he's been called, the duke kidnaps her. Forced proximity and heated coupling follows as do raw and painful emotions the pair will need to work through. If they wish to make a go at an impossible and unlikely romance, something will have to give.

...unless the wounds cut too deep for love or forgiveness to take root.