After a thoroughly unpleasant first marriage, Madeline, Lady Upcott, reveled in a widow’s freedoms—both in the bedchamber and out. Yet society cares not for an independent woman, and her family has decided she must wed again to replenish the coffers. It seems her dream of happiness with a dominant man who fulfills her wickedest fantasies, is destined never to be. History scholar Lord Ethan Dare has returned from Egypt to find his new inheritance on the brink of ruin, and his relatives at war with England’s notorious Wicked Widow. They want her banished, but the woman he meets is a warm, witty, and lushly sensual bluestocking who is more than willing to offer a younger and inexperienced man some very special instruction. One night turns into a scorching hot affair for two kindred souls, but can fledgling love survive the crushing burdens of duty?