When Baron Farleigh finds himself abandoned along the road to Gretna Green, he goes to get a drink at his favorite coaching inn. As he sips his beer, Serena Davenport, the woman he once loved, appears at his side. Serena has just returned from Italy where she worked as an archaeologist on her father's dig. But now her father is dead, and she is on the run from a nefarious Frenchman, carrying a priceless artifact in her reticule. An honorable man, Arthur agrees to help her, but he finds his motives are not completely pure. Time has not killed his love for her, and he still wants her more than he has ever wanted any woman. Seeing Serena again brings all of his long-dead passion back to life. When Serena Davenport takes shelter with her old friend Arthur, she discovers that after ten years, attractive youths become strapping men. She also discovers that she had forgotten the deep blue of his eyes, the breadth of his shoulders, and the fact that, without his shirt, Arthur Farleigh looks like a young Apollo. Desperate to bring her father's most important find to the dons at Oxford, she enlists Arthur's help. But when Baron Farleigh takes her home for the night to meet his mother, she wonders how a woman might slip past an honorable man's defenses, and find a way to bed a baron...