At 29, Moira Maclean considers herself too old to wed, and she's pleased to think she need never surrender her precious independence. She's made a place for herself in a Scottish convent, using her talents for increasing crops and flocks to bring prosperity. It takes only moments to shatter her contented life. A traveler arrives, claiming to bear a message from Moira's dying father, declaring that the only hope for her clan is for Moira to wed him. So, within the hour, she marries the stranger, gives him her virgin's blood -- and learns that everything her new husband has told her is a lie. Her father not only still lives, but she's just wed her clan's most bitter enemy. Still, those bold falsehoods bear valuable fruit -- a truce to end years of bloodshed, and an innocent life growing within Moira to bind their rival clans together. When her husband returns to the convent to claim her, Moira agrees to honor the sacred vows he won from her with lies -- and finds that the handsome trickster is determined to court her, and to defend the promises of peace and love he made to her with his heart's blood.