As perfect as a marble statue, George Frobisher, the future Earl of Chadleigh, was thunderstruck when, at the age of seventeen, he accidentally glimpsed Miss Olivia Henshaw emerging naked from her bath the day of his sister's wedding. That vision of a Venus, his Venus, would fuel his fantasies for years to come. Ten years after the wedding, Olivia Henshaw has resigned herself to spinsterhood caring for her ailing uncle in a cold and dark castle in the Scottish Highlands. She has no expectation of anything but a cozy visit with her best friend, Felicia Leyton, when she accepts her invitation to an intimate house party in the countryside. No one at the Leytons' Yorkshire abbey can guess what will transpire when fantasy finally meets reality.