Desperate to escape the clutches of her mother, Eliza Hilliard, 17, trades the sumptuous false freedoms of Boston society for marriage to a royal stranger...

An innocent in a palace of dark intrigue, Eliza is helplessly captured in a bondage of raw desire--swept on a sea of frightening sensual ecstasy. She swears to flee from the 28 year old notorious Hungarian prince--before she loses her very will to the ruthless hunger which possesses her body and soul.

But as the flames of war erupt, the lovers are torn by a scandal of loyalties divided, a private hell of dangerous betrayal. And in a last deadly game of power, they gamble the one thing they cannot live without... the radiant, forever promise of a love too long denied.