It was to be a great adventure for Melissa MacGregor - an escape from the wilds of her Scottish home into the world of the London Season. There she hopes to find a suitable husband who will not be intimidated by her sixteen uncles, six of whom are called Ian. But before she begins her pursuit of a new life, she encounters an intriguing stranger on her grandfather's lands.

Lincoln Ross Burnett, the seventeenth Viscount Cambury, once called Scotland his home, until as a boy of twelve he was sent away to London after his father's death, the subject of a bitter family feud. Now, as he roams the countryside of his youth, he still feels the bitterness of his exile - until he meets Melissa, and is struck by her beauty and liveliness. He pursues her to London, where even their shared passion may not be powerful enough to overcome the devastating hatred of those who have sworn his destruction...