"Six years ago, when Lady Amarantha Vale was an innocent in a foreign land and Gabriel Hume was a young naval officer, they met . . . and played with fire. Now Gabriel is the dark lord known to society as the Devil's Duke, a notorious recluse hidden away in a castle in the Highlands. Only Amarantha knows the truth about him, and she won't be intimidated. He is the one man who can give her the answers she needs. But Gabriel cannot let her learn his darkest secret. So begins a game of wit and desire that proves seduction is more satisfying--and much more wicked--the second time around..." -- Page [4] of cover.

Libby Shaw is determined to become a member of Edinburgh's all-male Royal College of Surgeons. Disguising herself as a man, she attends the surgical theater and nearly fools everyone. Forced to leave his home as a boy, famed portraitist Ziyaeddin is secretly the exiled prince of a distant realm. When he first met Libby, he memorized every detail of her face and drew her. But her perfect lips gave him trouble--the same lips he now longs to kiss. When Libby asks his help to hide her feminine identity from the world, Ziyaeddin agrees on one condition: she must sit for him to paint--as a woman. But what begins as a daring scheme could send them both hurtling toward danger...and an unparalleled love.