An unmarried widow. A rake seeking a muse. Jane Stuart has lost everything, her betrothed, her ancestral castle in the Highlands, and her life’s work—the orchard where she ran her apple tree crossbreeding trials. But after a year of exile in smoke-filled Glasgow, she’s gone numb to the loss, indifferent to her lonely, grey future. Then he comes along. Percy Sommerbell is a musician, a free spirit who holds nothing but disdain for his industrialist father. But when familial duty forces Percy to travel to Scotland to inspect his father’s holdings, he’s confronted with an uncomfortable truth. His fortune—the money that funds his aimless wandering through all life’s pleasures—is generated by the exploitation of people, children, in his father’s spinning mills. There’s something else in Glasgow, a mysterious Highland beauty whose sad eyes and luscious curves promise temporary distraction from his growing sense of guilt, and inspiration for his music. Against her better judgement, Jane finds herself falling for this man’s charms. But when the mills become the first spark in a violent radical insurgency, everything changes. Jane and Percy’s connection might not be as fleeting as either of them imagined.