Paris in 1869 was a wildly extravagant society, one in which women valued jewels above love and lavish spending brought rich men to ruin. Yet it was to Paris that the breathtakingly beautiful Lady Corinna Vernon fled in order to escape her shrewish aunt, and assumed the post of governess under a disguised name, There, too, she met the Duke of Milverton, a wealthy handsome lord. Soon they were both caught up in an elaborate deception that could only draw them strangely closer.