Beautiful young Melanie Johnston had every reason to hate Roland Donovan. It was this man who caused the death of her beloved grandfather. It was he who possessed her in a night of mischief and madness, forever staining her honor. It was he who drove away the well-horn suitor she was to have wed. There was only one way for Melanie to take revenge - she would marry him and then use her every feminine wile to destroy him. But Melanie did not dream then of the strength of her own hungers.

Doomed to a life of unending toil, Heather Simmons fears for her innocence—until a shocking, desperate act forces her to flee...and to seek refuge in the arms of a virile and dangerous stranger.

A pact is sealed in secret behind the foreboding walls of Newgate Prison. In return for one night of unparalleled pleasure, a dashing condemned criminal consents to wed a beautiful heiress, thereby rescuing her from an impending and abhorred arranged union. But in the fading echoes of hollow wedding vows, a solemn promise is broken, as a sensuous free spirit takes flight to a lush Caribbean paradise, abandoning the stranger she married to face the gallows unfulfilled.

A young heiress in mourning for her mother's death, Kimberly Richards has been abandoned by her lifelong fiancé. But Kimberly's father, the recently widowed Earl of Amburough, is intent upon marrying her off as quickly as possible - to please the jealous lover he longs to wed. So the rather indelicate business of matchmaking begins.

Lillian Newton was not the only stranger at Plantation Inn. The heavy rains that had flooded the river and forced her to seek refuge at the old stage-stop had driven others to the sanctuary as well. At first, Lillian paid scant attention to the rest of the group. But soon she sensed a tension in the atmosphere. Rumors of an escaped killer - an outlaw whose vicious deeds had terrorized the countryside - spread a chill blanket of uneasiness over the charming old house. Then things began to happen: the stalking shadow glimpsed through the trees, the cat whose throat had been cut, the mysterious crying of an infant....