Determined to remain single, beautiful Meredith Straffen fabricates a physical deformity and exhibits inexcusably bad behavior, but soon the very man she wished to drive away begins warming her icy heart, in a novel set in Tudor England

Scorned for his Swedish heritage, Count Rugar Kalisson vows to beat Queen Elizabeth's knights in a battle of strength and to win her ladies—among them Corinna Huntington—in a battle of hearts