The Plumed Bonnet

DECEIVING THE DUKE — There was no reason for a lord as handsome and high and mighty as the Duke of Bridgwater even to glance at a humble vicar's daughter like Miss Stephanie Gray. No reason except that the Duke was in need of amorous amusement, and that he was mistakenly convinced that Stephanie was precisely the kind of woman that she most decidedly was not.

It was one thing for Stephanie to be grateful to the Duke for rescuing her from a horrific highway mishap. It was quite another, however, to repay him by accepting what she long had been told was a fate worse than death. So when the Duke stooped to conquer, Stephanie rose to defend her virtue -- only to find that even the most proper young lady on the brink of the deepest of dangers could nonetheless fall in love