** spoiler alert ** 4.5 stars

First I discovered Anne Stuart, and her unforgettable historical romance heroes. Dark, witty, urbane, cynical, sexy and sly. After meeting (and loving) a few of those men I was ready for Sebastian Verlaine, the tortured Viscount D'Aubrey(To Have and To Hold, Patricia Gaffney). Finally, I've been introduced to Justin Kinmurrie, Duke of Kylemore, the heir apparent to the 'Regency noir' throne.

What a man. What a story.

I first read this book in virtually one sitting. Wonderful book, I thought, with a couple of minor annoyances. Then I thought about it a bit and read it again. Upon doing so, all of the depth and complexity of the characters and the story began to shine through.

On first blush, the Duke of Kylemore is not a particularly nice man. His prized possession is his mistress - and make no mistake, she is merely his possession. He is enthralled with her and 'she belonged to him, as much a part of his prestige as his perfect tailoring, his famous stables or his rich estates.'. When she disappears after his pronouncement that they should be wed Kylemore is stunned.

He spends months searching for her. He makes himself a laughingstock among the ton. He hires criminals to break into a lawyer's office to discover her real name and where she has gone. When he finds her he kidnaps her. At gunpoint.

See, not so nice.

He ties her up and forces her on a breakneck journey across England, beyond the Scottish border to an isolated hunting box hidden in an valley surrounded by rugged cliffs and inhospitable countryside. There he will force her to submit to him, to pay him recompense for his misery and trouble since she left him. While they are there he forces her to have sex with him, and treats her as his chattel. Not only does no NOT mean no to him, it means nothing. Nothing matters to Kylemore except that he is again in possession of Soraya.

What a bastard, you think. And you would be right. Except...

The author allows us to see the real man inside "Cold Kylemore". Although initially his idea to marry Soraya was merely to piss off his mother, once he had said the words, he was prepared to do the deed (albeit for reasons that he didn't understand himself).

He was fascinated by his mistress and couldn't get enough of her. He sensed there was much behind the image she presented to him but he wasn't able to break through, and knew that was part of her appeal for him. When she disappeared he was like a spoiled child denied his toy and he was consumed with getting her back. Once he had done so, however, it still wasn't enough. He had his toy back, but still felt like crying.

He had hunted down Soraya - but instead found Verity. And that changed everything. He found that Verity possessed the depth that Soraya lacked; that even though he had possessed every inch of Soraya, his mistress, Verity was someone he didn't even know. He saw glimpses of Soraya in Verity so kept trying to reach her the only way he knew how - with sex. The only peace he had ever known was with Soraya and he is desperate to get that back. The more response he forces from her, the more she withdraws. He hates what he is doing but cannot stop himself, and his desperation is palpable.

We get glimpses of Kylemore as Justin - a frightened little boy trapped with an insane parent. There is mention of the chair that his father was strapped to, the only one sturdy enough to hold him. Not much is said, but the horror of his upbringing is inferred. Kylemore has nightmares and neither he nor Verity are eating much (for completely different reasons, of course). There are bars on all the windows and Kylemore is way too familiar with a hidey-hole in the shrubbery outside of the house.

So much angst, so much passion, so much love. All bottled up in a man who has no idea how to express it.

Soraya/Verity, on the other hand, is quite different. As Soraya, she presented to the world a cool facade, a beautiful face, a body men killed for. Hidden inside was Verity - orphaned, left to take care of a younger brother and sister in a world where women had virtually no value. Her only option was to become a courtesan. She has locked herself away, desperate to keep her two lives separate until the day she can cast Soraya aside and reclaim her ordinary life with her brother and sister as Verity Ashton.

Soraya was leery of the Duke of Kylemore from the get go. She knew that he had wanted her for years before she accepted his offer of protection. She had always held herself back from him. She would not admit to herself how beautiful she found him or how attracted she was to him. She was pulled to him (as he was to her) and she knew that if she stayed with him long enough, and let her guard down just enough, she would be lost. She loved him a bit all along - she saw through him to the wounded little boy he had been, and knew the Cold Kylemore facade was just that. "I think...I think the duke is an unhappy man" she says, to which her brother replies, "As unhappy as a great fortune and a pretty face and all a man can want could be. He's nobbut spoilt, that's all." They are both right.

Verity is ready to let him go, and cast off her life as Soraya when Kylemore proposes marriage. She sees through him immediately -- she knows he is hatching a scheme, but cannot figure out exactly what he is up to. All she does know is that she cannot accept. She will be trapped as Soraya and will never be free. She also knows that it would never work - she is a whore, after all. Kylemore will be made mock of and they will both be miserable.

She refuses to allow herself to see what she begun to feel for Kylemore - she absolutely cannot in order for her to exist as she is. This is played off against Kylemore, who was enthralled with Soraya, the object, but falls in love with Verity, the person.

That was the crux of the book for me.

The battle between them is well fought and exhausting. Verity clings to her detachment, believing that if Kylemore's toy won't play with him, he will lose interest and move on. Kylemore is desperate to get past that detachment, to force Verity to see that she can be both Soraya and Verity without losing herself. He tries even harder once he realizes that it is Verity that he wants.

They are polarized in their struggle. She thinks: "He hadn't gone to this trouble for the sake of a quick tumble. He hadn't even gone to this trouble to reclaim what he'd shared with Soraya. No, he meant to destroy her. They both knew it....She was as isolated from human assistance as if she were on the moon. Kylemore knew exactly what he was doing when he'd brought his mistress to this isolated hunting box."

And at the same time, Kylemore "silently admitted he'd had no idea what he was doing when he brought his mistress to his childhood home. He already suspected that keeping Verity here was a mistake. She only made him more vulnerable, just as this place made him vulnerable. And if ever he needed to hold fast to ruthlessness, it was now."

They are so far apart at the beginning, both so blind to what the other is feeling. Even more blind to what they themselves are feeling.

That's why this book works.

If Kylemore had kept her in London, or even Kylemore Castle - it would never have worked; he wouldn't have redeemed himself. The abduction and rape would have been just that and his behaviour toward her repugnant. He would never have looked inside himself enough to realize that he LOVED Verity. Nor would Verity have ever glimpsed Justin behind Kylemore. It is precisely the isolation, in a house where Justin has nothing but horrible memories that makes this work so well.

The author shows us both the H/h innermost feelings - which helps us to understand Kylemore's actions. You can see him begin to redeem himself, first with his thoughts, and then with his actions. He is desperate - anyone who has ever loved that way knows exactly the feeling to which he is subject - nothing is out of the realm, and you will go to ridiculous lengths to hang on to the thing you fear you cannot live without.

And again, it is precisely the quality of writing, the layers to the characters and the emotion Anna Campbell brings to this story that lets us see what they are feeling, to feel it along with them, and to see the walls that Kylemore and Verity have built up around themselves come down, brick by brick.

The best moment in the book for me comes when Kylemore finally realizes the depths to which he has sunk in order to possess Verity. He accepts that he has to let her go - to do the right thing. ”His only consolation was that, finally, too late and after the damage was done, he'd found the will to act like a man". My heart broke for him. Verity, in the meantime, after hearing some of the stories of Kylemore's youth, finally admits to herself what she was never able to in London - she is in love with the Duke of Kylemore. Finally, they come together on equal footing - not as demimondaine and protector, not as captor and prisoner, but as lovers. It is tender, profound, and lifechanging. And I wanted to stand up and cheer!!!

All of this, of course, does not mean that Kylemore has redeemed himself completely. He is well on his way, but it takes him until the end of the story to finish the job and he does so admirably, in ways guaranteed to make your heart melt.

Oh, this book is beautifully done. So well written, so many layers to the story. The characters are so real, so compelling I couldn't put it down. I could feel Kylemore's desperation at trying to reach Verity. I could feel Verity's desperate need to keep herself detached from Kylemore, and the agony she felt when she couldn't. And most of all, I could feel the depth of the love and the passion they felt for each other.

So, at the end of the day, not such a bastard. Any man who would say, when asked by Verity if he loved her:

Shamingly, his voice broke as he answered. "I die for love of you, mo leannan."

can't be all bad.