Lady Caroline Stanyon intends to make a brilliant marriage. Penniless but beautiful, she has secured the hand of the infamous 'wicked' Marquis of Ryde - wealthy, powerful and deliciously cynical. Love does not matter, or so she believes.

With her orphaned cousin Orelia under her protection, Caroline intends to make an equally good match for Orelia. But sensitive and perceptive, Orelia cannot forget her passionate first kiss with a dark, sardonic stranger who had rescued her from two drunken men in the country. And when she meets the Marquis, her world shatters. He is the man she has never been able to forget.

As forbidden love flares, Orelia becomes the target of a dangerous suitor - the ruthless Earl of Rotherton - who will stop at nothing to claim her. Caught between passion and peril, she must choose between duty and the love that could cost her everything.