Ellie Braun is on her way from the Old West to England to start a new life as lady’s maid to American heiress Helena Mortimer. But when Helena runs off with one of the porters from the ship as soon as they dock in London, it’s up to Ellie to smooth things over with Lord Henry Howsden, Helena’s fiancé. But instead of being disappointed, Lord Henry concocts a plan for Ellie to impersonate Helena in order to fool his family. A former soiled dove pretending to be a wealthy heiress in the household of a marquis? What could go wrong?

Henry Howsden has resented his father’s attempts to sell him in marriage to a woman he’s never seen from day one. By introducing Ellie to his family as Miss Mortimer, letting them fall in love with her, then revealing her true identity, he intends to prove to them that common people have worth, and that marriage is not a game. But almost from the start, he falls in love with the beautiful, clever, and free-spirited Ellie. She is everything that he has never been permitted to be, and all too soon he can’t imagine a life without her.

But the gulf between an ex-prostitute and a British nobleman is an enormous one, and the passion that develops between Ellie and Henry may prove to be as impossible as it is undeniable.