One man's towering pride and insatiable passion shadowed two women's lives.

Beautiful Englishwoman Lucia Allingham came to turbulent 19th-century Spain to discover and claim her birthright as daughter to her noble Spanish mother, Mercedes Castella Blanca.

What Lucia found was an ancestral mansion fallen into ruin, and a vast estate seized by the arrogant, ruthless Marques de Alquezar.

Lucia hated this swaggeringly strong grandee on sight--even before she suspected his evil role in her mother's secret past. And her hatred turned to terror when she felt the hold this man had on her. But it was a hold Daniel Whitaker, the handsome American artist, would free her from, as he saved her from the fires of Alquezar's lust...and awakened her to a tender love she need never fear or deny...