Having grown up in a broken family, Miss Elizabeth Crawford dreams of living a life of solitude, hiding the scars no one sees. Although her destiny lies in a marriage of convenience, all she wants is a husband who will love her, for her father certainly does not. His desire to see her out of the house is further reinforced in the fact that he has agreed to give her hand not to a baron, but rather his brother! Worse still, the man is arrogant and harsh with his words, but oh, so devilishly handsome.
After seven years in hiding to escape a tortuous past, Caleb Beaumont has emerged with the scars on his body as a reminder of what he has done. Returning to his ancestral home to claim the doting bride his brother has found for him, Caleb finds a far different woman in her place. Elizabeth is a striking woman, but her expectations of marriage are much more than Caleb had ever considered possible. Has he made a mistake? As the date of their wedding draws near, Elizabeth questions everything Caleb has told her about his life. And Caleb soon learns that there is no escaping the past, while the future sometimes leads to the same ending he attempted to avoid.