Wealthy, popular and famously handsome and dashing, Draco, the Duke of Atherstone has the world and most of its Society beauties at his feet.
Yet, as his arrives on his yacht in Algiers he is dissatisfied. If only he could find the woman who would complete the other of him - as has his wise and supremely contented Russian friend, Nicholas Vlastov.
Visiting what appears to be a slave market in the Kasba, the Duke notices that among the drugged girls being callously auctioned is a beautiful young waif who is utterly different from the rest - and when she whispers, "save me!", he knows that she in English and that he must rescue her.
So begins his and Selina's flight from the evil slavers to Monte Carlo, then from murderous kidnappers who hold them for ransom and then from the Society beauty determined to claim the Duke in marriage.
Not once, but twice, the dashing Duke puts his life on the line to save Selina, as he falls wholeheartedly in love for the very first time.
But how, Selina wonders desperately, can a noble Duke, possibly marry a girl he has found in a harem?