The year is 1814 and Grey St. James has escaped from Napoleon's prison on the rocky isle of Mont St. Michel. Desperate and dangerous, he is a far cry from the rakish nobleman who had broken hearts in Regency London.

In a chateau high above the romantic Loire River, Natalya Beauvisage is writing her second novel. At 26, she is beautiful but hardly marriageable and that suits her, for she plans to devote herself to her career as a novelist. The men in Natalya's books do her bidding but when a dark, threatening stranger appears at the chateau and holds her at knife-point, she discovers a potently attractive real man who is completely beyond her control.

Grey needs to escape from France and Natalya longs to return to America at a time when war made sea passage perilous, so they form an unlikely alliance. Dangerous adventures await them as they journey together, attempting first to elude Napoleon's henchmen and then to travel on to London, where Grey must confront shocking changes in his life.

As they grow closer, Natalya is caught up in a passionate fantasy that surpasses any she could imagine. But Grey's heart is imprisoned by dark secrets, and not until he has delivered her to her Philadelphia home does that mystery begin to unravel...