Blaze Wyndham, the daughter of impoverished nobility, is forced to wed an older man she does not know, a stranger who must win her heart before he can awaken her as a woman. He is Edmund Wyndham, Earl of Langford, whose love fills her life with happiness-and whose cruel death leaves his young bride aching with
loss and stripped of all defenses but her own pride and courage in a world ruled by men's appetites and ambitions.
There is no way that Blaze can say no when king Henry is roused by her ravishing beauty and demands her surrender with all the awesome power of his position and virile attraction of his person. Blaze becomes not only his mistress but his confidante as he makes his intricate moves on the chessboard of history, heading toward a divorce that will shock the world... and toward marriage with the scheming Anne Boleyn. Meanwhile, Blaze is ordered to wed again, this time violently against her will-for her proposed bridegroom is none other than the dashing, rakish Anthony Wyndham, younger brother of the husband whose memory Blaze does not want to betray.