1813, Regency England. Lucius White is the oldest living vampire in the world—a powerful, shape-changing upyr. But for the last several hundred years, his life on Earth has paled to mere existence. He needs little and feels less... Then a chance roadside encounter gives him the opportunity to assume a mortal identity, and Lucius experiences the throb of human hungers with an intensity he can't remember having felt before. Taking on the guise of a prosperous—if eccentric—local squire, he becomes a tempting prize for local matchmaking mamas. His attempts to evade them lead him to a most unsuitable object of desire: poor but spirited Theodora Becket. Far too attracted to conform to the expectations of polite society, he uses his vampire thrall to bring them both indescribable ecstasy. Soon, despite a thousand years of ennui, Lucius is ablaze, an impossibly powerful upyr in love. The question then becomes, can any woman trust a man whose passion can't withstand the light of day?