Elissa Hess

A violent storm should have killed Esther.
Instead, it delivers her straight into the hands of Count Alistair Winchester.
Wounded and far from home, Esther awakens in a manor of unimaginable luxury, where comfort is provided before she thinks to ask for it. Silk gowns wait in her wardrobe. Servants tend her to her every need. And the dark, enigmatic nobleman who rescued her watches her with an intensity that makes fear dangerously easy to mistake for desire.
But Winchester Manor hides an old and disturbing legacy.
At night, apparitions gather beside Esther’s bed and whisper:
Run!
By daylight, stranger things begin to surface. Family portraits that make no sense. Belongings whose owners have vanished. Remedies prepared for purposes no one will explain. And one part of the estate Alistair has forbidden her to enter.
The more Esther discovers around, the harder it becomes to believe she was brought to the Winchester Manor by chance.
Yet leaving is no longer as simple as walking through an open door.
And the man she should fear most is becoming the one she cannot stop wanting to understand and look beyond his mask.
Because behind Alistair’s impeccable manners lies a hunger older than Esther can imagine.
It isn't always necessary to chain someone down to keep them close; among the monstrous tools in this story are kindness, a touch of unhealthy curiosity... and a door that must not be entered.