Declan Gordon is glad for a new start away from the ghosts of his past. Just as he begins his new life as laird, he meets a fiery-haired lass who allows him to seduce her while at the same time touting her dismay at the possibility of marriage to the "new laird".

Meredith Stuart will only marry a man of her own choosing. When she happens upon a handsome dark man, she decides to seduce him in order to keep her brother from parading her before the new laird, who is rumored to have no honor. What will happen when Meredith finds out her lover is indeed the one man she is fighting to stay away from? Will Declan reveal the secrets of his past and will that revelation push Meredith further away?