She should have grown up in a life of luxury and ease-instead, she was thrust into one of danger and deception... Forced by her scheming mother to pretend that she was a boy, Vanessa Fordella becomes Van, the Dark Knight, in twelfth-century England. But when her now-dying mother demands that she leave behind her charade and marry, Van embarks on the most difficult journey of her life. And if her new husband ever finds out the truth... After years of war, all he wants is peace and the simple life... Peter Lawston, Lord Grayweist, hopes for a shy and controllable wife to run his castle and bear his children. What arrives, instead, is a hell cat, who doesn't know the first thing about being docile or obedient. There's something familiar about his unconventional wife, but Peter can't put his finger on it. As Van struggles to let go of the knight she has been and become the wife she is expected to be, events unfold that threaten to destroy everything she holds dear, including her very life.