If You Deceive

If You Deceive is a 2007 historical romance by Kresley Cole, published by Pocket Books and recorded as the third book in the MacCarrick Brothers sequence.

Ethan MacCarrick lost his looks and his standing when a nobleman had him beaten for a crime he had not committed, and the reprisal he managed afterwards, financial ruin and exile for the man responsible, did not settle the account. A decade later he meets Madeleine van Rowen, who is the daughter of the man he blames, and he decides to use her: a proposal of marriage, a seduction, and then abandonment.

Madeleine has been hardened by her family's sudden fall into poverty and disgrace, and the discipline that keeps her from trusting anyone is precisely what Ethan has to break down to carry out his plan. The book is written for the historical romance readership, and its structure, a revenge scheme that the schemer cannot complete, is one the genre returns to constantly, since the plot requires the rake to be undone by the person he set out to ruin. Ethan is a scarred Highlander by the time he meets her, and the forgiveness the story moves towards has to account for a scheme already set in motion. Madeleine's family fell from comfort without warning, and the loss taught her to expect nothing from anyone, which is why his pursuit has to be relentless before it registers at all.