Forbidden love is always a scandalous choice. . . . 
 She raced across the pasture, vaulted  a fence, and landed, stunned and breathless, on top of the most handsome man she  had ever seen. The bemused stranger stayed to capture the fancy of the brood of orphaned  children in her charge, then stole Lauren Hill's heart with a searing kiss as he  left. Lauren couldn't tell him she was a widowed countess fallen on hard times. She  tried to forget him—until she saw him again at a London ball. The man who haunted  her dreams was a duke, out of her class...and he was pledged to another woman. 
 The ton is ablaze with talk of the ravishing Bavarian countess. Stunned, Alexander  Christian, Duke of Sutherland, recognizes Lauren as the country girl who's captured  his heart. Duty has forced him to pledge himself to another, to take his proper place  in society and in Parliament. He wants one night with his blue-eyed enchantress,  but will he be able to walk away from her again, or will he risk it all to be with  the woman who fires his blood and makes him think of a . . . Wicked Angel.