To Beguile a Beast

To Beguile a Beast is a historical romance by the American writer Elizabeth Hoyt, published in 2009 and part of her Legend of the Four Soldiers series.

Sir Alistair Munroe is a naturalist who returned from the colonies with his face and his temper ruined, and he has hidden in his castle since then, working on the specimens he collects and refusing to be looked at. Helen Fitzwilliam was a celebrated beauty in London, and the mistakes she has made have left her with two children, no money and no safe place, so she takes the position of housekeeper at his house in Scotland. The story that follows puts a woman who cannot afford to be noticed together with a man who does not want to be seen, and it draws on the Beauty and the Beast story, with the castle, the scarred recluse and the household that is slowly rearranged around the arrival of somebody who does not leave.

It is the third book in the series, and the wounds Alistair carries are among the consequences of a campaign that the earlier novels deal with.