The fascinating stranger who visits a young lady in the dead of night is no ghostly spirit in this spellbinding Regency romance by award-winning author Elizabeth Mansfield After scandalizing London with her improper behavior and jilting two suitors, Nell Belden is about to do it again. This time she rejects the very wealthy, utterly insufferable nobleman her financially strapped guardians have been pressuring her to marry. Banished to their isolated Cornwall estate, Nell is awakened one night by an unusual apparition. But her midnight visitor is no phantom. He is Captain Henry Thorne, sixth Earl of Thornbury. The new Lord of Thorndene has returned to his crumbling family seat to live in isolation, far from the horrors of war. Nell is intrigued by this wounded soldier who has no desire to take his rightful place in society. As the weeks pass and fascination flames into dangerous desire, Nell realizes she must leave—or risk losing her heart to the one man who can never belong to her.