Spirited young Lucia Mannering willingly let herself be offered as a prize in a shocking wager between her odious stepfather, Jasper Franklyn, and Hugo, Marquis of Mandersely. For this was her only hope of escape from a household where humiliation was her daily lot and degradation seemed her certain future.

It was only when the bet was settled, and she found herself looking into Hugo's ironic, devilishly handsome face, that Lucia fully realized what she had done. She knew that this nobleman's reputation for cynical wit and scandalous living was the talk of all Regency London. And now she was his, to do with what he liked.

Lucia's daring gamble had begun -- and she trembled to think how it might end. …

EVERYONE WAS EAGER TO PUT FELICITY IN HER PLACE

Her cousin Amaryllis made it clear that Felicity did not belong in the fashionable drawing rooms of the great country house of Cheynings.

Jamie, the six-year-old heir to Cheynings, marked Felicity as his latest victim in a long series of routed governesses.

Lord Stayne, the infuriatingly handsome master of Cheynings, coldly informed her that her ideas and opinions were of no earthly interest to a supremely self-confident male like himself.

And the vile Captain Hardman, whose devious designs Felicity threatened, did not bother to mask his intentions of removing her from his path by either brutal force or contemptible cunning.

Felicity, however, had her own notions about what a woman's place should be--as she set out on a campaign of conquest with only her wit and wiles as weapons, and love as a very treacherous ally....