Book two of the "Inferno Club" series finds Rohan Kilburn, the Duke of Warrington, recently returned to his ancestral lands after having fought a war. A member of the secretive Inferno Club, he is a hired asassain trained to kill the most devious of men--but on his return home, he is shocked to discover a rare gift given to him by shifty cutthroats hoping to appease his anger at their dastardly deeds. On the assumption that the gift given to him is there willingly, he is slightly appeased. When he finds that Kate was forcefully taken from her home to be given to him as a double-edged gift, though, his reputation as “The Beast” is tested.

Kate Madsen was sent from her childhood home on the high seas to a remote cottage to hide with her father’s elderly assistant watching over her. When Charley dies from a heart attack, there is no one to protect her when local villagers come and kidnap her.

They call her Kate Fox, and she thinks they have the wrong person until she meets Rohan. Together they uncover her real past and race to unlock the secret behind the Warrington curse:  a long-ago battle that ended with a witch being killed--but before she died, she put a curse on all the Warrington men. Believing that should he ever fell in love, he would eventually kill his wife, Rohan has blocked off his heart and controlled his emotion. Now Kate has taught him what it means to really love someone and put your life on the line for that person.

I loved this second installment in the series, although the sex scenes are few and far between and fairly lackluster. I appreciate a lot of sexual tension and chemistry in my books, and this one falls a little flat. But overall, I love the underlying theme of the fairy tale "The Beauty and the Beast." Am I the only one that got that?