The moment he saw her, Ian knew she was a woman of distinction. Her chin held high, her eyes snapping blue sparks of fury, Lady Mariel Wythe stood silently amid the ashes of her ancestral home. Although saddened by the fire's damage to her beloved Cloister, Mariel held fast to her dignity, her strength, her hope. Reverend Ian Beckwith-Carter was quite sure he’d never encountered a more beautiful sight. But the handsome young minister also noted troublesome shadows lingering over the stone walls of Foxbridge Cloister. The suspicious fire was only the beginning of a mysterious chain of events surrounding the country estate. A thread of madness had woven itself into the very fiber of the Wythe clan, and Ian was determined to unravel the unsettling legend. He would free Mariel from the bonds of the past, protect her from the perils of an uncertain future—before the madness erupted once again . . .