A nobleman of illegitimate birth is determined to give society its comeuppance—but a spirited woman may change his mind about love and marriage. With revenge in his soul, Ivan Thornton, the rakehell known as the Gypsy bastard, cuts a swath across London, leaving broken hearts in his wake. But the newly entitled Earl of Westcott—and the most eligible bachelor in the city—hasn't even begun to punish society for turning its back on him when he was a child, making him suffer for the sins of his father. A spinster possessing neither title nor fortune, Lucy Drysdale knows that her sharp repartee and intellectual curiosity frighten off potential husbands. In London to chaperone the sheltered young cousin of the Earl of Westcott through her first social season, she plans to attend lectures given by the world-class expert in psychology with whom she's been secretly corresponding. Instead she finds herself clashing with an arrogant, uncivilized nobleman who is handsomer than sin and awakens passionate feelings in her. Vowing to keep her wits about her, Lucy dares the unthinkable: taming a man whom society deems too dangerous to love.