In the eyes of society, ladies are born, not made...

Eloise Hamilton, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy banker, knows society's hallowed doors are closed to the likes of her. She attends her first country ball with no expectations, not even when Lord Richard Craven, heir to a dukedom, singles her out.

Harry Benson-Smythe is shocked to return from a long absence to find that the sight of Craven sniffing around an all-grown-up Eloise incites a disconcerting level of jealousy. All for a girl he once thought of as a little sister—now a woman his father will never allow him to take to wife.

But there are other ways to be together, as in joining forces to investigate the disappearance of several local girls. Yet when Harry catches Craven kissing Eloise, he decides he will damn well be the one to show her how it's done—properly.

Craven will not let Eloise's rejections and Harry's insults go lightly by. He had plans for Eloise's virginal body—even if life as they all know it ends in a hellfire of bullets.