For the love of a man... she sheared her long, flowing hair and bound her curving body into the brass-buttoned uniform of a British ensign. No war could keep the headstrong Garnet Mallory from Edmund Challoner, Captain of the Dragoons. Disguised, she embarked for Spain with the troops, her true identity known to no man except - one who saw with the eyes of sympathy, another who leered with perverted desire, and one gifted with the insight of love. Across Spain and France she journeyed in her romantic quest, only to discover that hers was not the only disguise, that love itself often wears a mask.

She was a red-haired, emerald-eyed beauty, an actress on stage and off, prepared to give her life to the theater until runaway aristocrat Gerard Mallory invaded her world and changed it forever. He wouldn't be an ensign to suite his noble father's design - but he would become an actor, playing opposite the ravishing Coral Maguire, traveling with her troupe to the farthest reaches of the land. Little did Coral dream that this brash intruder would carry her to the ends of the earth...on a daring secret mission to France to rescue her imprisoned sister...in flight from Ireland and a false charge of murder...and finally, onto the New York stage.

They waltzed with abandon in Brussels while Napoleon challenged his fate. But the war would come between dashing Major-General Brock Savage and his beautiful wife, Garnet - war, and the ravishing Cassandra Mayne, destined to become Garnet's close confidante and Brock's personal, passionate Waterloo. Brock Savage, soon to be knighted for his heroism against Napoleon, was about to embark on the battle for his life - and his soul - on the home front at Rosewood Hall. How could he tell his beloved Garnet the truth about this woman they called "The Witch," this "governess" who came to divide and conquer, leaving in her wake a legacy of infamy, lust, blackmail and murder...