MEGAN McCALL, widowed and left almost penniless, swears to right the wrongs her inept husband committed but will trust no man to help her. Her only means of income, however, comes from the male-dominated shipbuilding business she inherited from her father...who was believed to have been killed by pirates. Worse, crippled by the carriage accident that killed her husband, Megan is dependent on her newly acquired indentured servant to transport her around.

Success being the best revenge, ROYCE DEVLIN has spent half his life building a shipping business to prove his independence from the last woman who tried to dominate him. But, he has been imprisoned and his ship confiscated when its cargo is determined to be pirated goods. Sold into indentureship by a corrupt gaoler, Royce winds up in colonial Virginia. Too proud to beg for help from the woman of his past, he vows to prove his innocence via his own resources.

But the Mistress of Hillhouse, Megan McCall, is as demanding and autocratic as that last woman in Royce's life ever thought to be. Yet, when he lifts Megan and her legs hang lifelessly over his arm, Royce is doomed by his compassion and the guilt of an old secret; while Megan is reminded that, damaged as she is, she will never know passion...not even from a rogue pirate.