He had built his empire on nutmeg, the treasure of the exotic spice island of Banda. Evert Haan's kingdom lacked only one thing--a wife. And so Annabet arrived from Holland by ship...but her celebrated beauty was now ravaged by illness. Enraged, Haan decreed that Annabet was to be secretly murdered. But Annabet was spared, and nursed back to haunting beauty. Haan could not have foreseen her miraculous transformation--or her passionate affair with a fiery young Irishman--or that he would come to want her desperately for himself...