Penniless and therefore of no consequence, Melinda lived with her uncle, Sir Hector Stanyon. But she was too beautiful for an orphan--too enchanting not to attract the young man her cousin Charlotte hoped to marry--she felt only withering hatred from the family that had taken her in. Her uncle decided that she would be married off to the highest bidder-his lecherous old friend.

She had no choice but to flee--to the callousness and terrors of Victorian London--and into the clutches of a seemingly kindly woman who offered the lovely girl lodging for the night. Only when she awakened from a drugged sleep did she see the barred windows and the locked doors... did she hear the fantastic offer of five hundred guineas if she would pretend to marry the notorious Marquis of Chard....