Eugenie Belmont has always dreamed of marrying the duke next door, but she knows her notoriously disreputable family is more than a bit of an obstacle. Still, she's determined to try, and Eugenie selects the icy yet heart-stoppingly handsome Sinclair St. John, Duke of Somerton as the man she intends to make her husband.
But Eugenie just can't seem to do anything right. First she frightens his horse, sending the dignified duke tumbling to the ground, then she knocks him into a wasp nest! Mortified and shaken out of his cool demeanor, Sinclair can't understand why he is giving the irksome chit a second thought. She's not beautiful and she has dreadfully forthright manners. And yet ... she is utterly unforgettable.
He attends a raggle-taggle ball in the village, just to see her again, and is appalled when he witnesses her family's behavior. But when Sinclair's sister runs off with Eugenie's brother, the unlikely pair is thrown together in the hunt for the eloping couple before all of England gets whiff of the scandal. And as Sinclair gets to know the intelligent woman beside him, he soon realizes he might just have to prove that he is good enough for her ...
