To Bed at Noon — Joseph Shearing

She was very young, very aristocratic, with a rare mind and uncommon beauty. Her name was Challis Allen, and she was everything that Marcus Dallam wanted in a wife.

There was only one thing wrong. Marcus was a proud man with a growing position in the most conservative circles of Kentucky, a state just out of its pioneer era. Challis detested "polite society." Her favorite clothing was buckskin, her favorite companions her slaves, her favorite haunt the forest, which she could slip through like an Indian.

But Challis was irresistible to Marcus; and she intended to have him. Even so, he might have escaped unscathed if the slave, Tully, had not interfered. As it was, he never had a chance...