Love, blood, and rhetoric . Home to England from the everlasting French wars, a handsome, battle-scarred cavalry captain eats and drinks his fill at a Gypsy camp. Half asleep that night, he is unsure whether the beautiful, sensuous, naked woman who appears and has her wicked, lascivious way with him in his woodland bed is real-or only a figment of his wine-soaked imagination. She vanishes and leaves him spent, and Captain Drake vows to find her and discover why she would seduce him so outrageously. Find her he does, the lady of a nearby manor, but getting the truth from her is not so easy....