Lady Genevieve faces total financial ruin as creditors circle her family estate, leaving an arranged marriage with her arrogant fiancé as her sole remaining lifeline. Under intense pressure from relatives to seal the alliance, she sneaks into what she assumes is her partner's private suite during a masquerade ball. In the shadows, she falls into a passionate encounter with a brooding stranger whose erratic supernatural fever miraculously cools under her fingertips.
To her absolute horror, morning light reveals that her bedmate is not her fickle fiancé, but Duke Julian, the empire's most feared warlord and her fiancé's reclusive uncle. Julian suffers from a violent madness curse that only Genevieve's touch can soothe. Claiming her as his sovereign duchess, Julian shields her from her family's manipulative schemes, refusing to yield the woman his nephew took for granted.
