After losing her mother to a fever, then her beloved father the Earl of Darrington – and now her Godmother too, eighteen-year-old Ilita is bereft, stricken by poverty as well as grief. For a fleeting moment, she's saved when her aunt takes her in. But the Countess is, to Ilita's horror, bitter, jealous of her beauty and ashamed to be associated with her. Sent away to work for a recently blinded Marchioness under a false name and ordered never to reveal her true identity, she meets her employer's son, the Marquis of Lyss. He's surly and sarcastic, suspecting she's a gold-digger. If only she could explain who she really is! Little by little, though, Ilita's perceptive spirit, kindness and beauty begin to melt his cold, hard heart. Is it possible that their mutual mistrust is turning to love?