The powder was white arsenic, and old man Blandy died. His dark-haired daughter Mary stood trial.

My Grand Enemy is the true story of a grand passion—an eighteenth century liaison beside which many a newspaper story of today would pale.

Francis Blandy was a testy, tightfisted, successful attorney who dreamed of climbing the social ladder. He thought his daughter Mary was too good for any of the local jackanapes she deserved the hand of a lord. And to this end, Blandy gave Mary-intelligent, attractive, but uncomfortably close to thirty—a £10,000 dowry.

Instantly attracted to the bait was one Captain Willy Cranstoun, a man of scarred countenance and shadowy reputation. Mary proved easily susceptible to his vow that she alone held his heart, and her provincial father was delighted that the son of a lord would soon be a member of his family ...