SNATCHED FROM A SQUALID FATE BY A HANDSOME MARQUIS! SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN HAPPY.... But alas, the impoverished Verena Barrington could not exult in a marriage forced on her and her groom to settle a gambling debt. She little wondered when the Marquis of Stafford sequestered her at his country estate and took himself off to Europe, to forget his sullen bride. The marquis's aunt Harriet did not see the situation as quite so dire, and under her tutelage Verena blossomed into a beautiful and intelligent marchioness. Stafford returned to find the creature he tried to ignore transformed: Verena was a wife to be reckoned with--and so was her distinctly dangerous beau....