In America, Miss Sarah Goldsborough was a dazzling Southern belle -- dazzling enough to win the heart of handsome British officer Peter Marchman. Peter was not like any other man she had ever known -- but only when she came as his bride to his home in England did she learn just how different he was.

Peter was Lord Marchman here -- and she was his lady. But in an aristocratic world where titles were trumps in games of love, and marriage vows seemed made only to be broken, Sarah discovered that she needed more than the beauty that had won him to keep him. And so Sarah was forced to match her wits and wiles against the seductions and stratagems of Peter's stunning cousin Annabella, society's reigning belle who had claimed Peter once and now meant to possess her lordly lover again