As young girls go, few possessed both the natural beauty and radiant talents of Lady Caroline Longridge, a playwright and puppeteer of lustrous reddish-gold hair and merry blue-gray eyes. For her, all the world was indeed a stage--one she happily shared with James Lytton, the boisterous and fun-loving confidant of her childhood.

But now the lovely Lady Caroline's carefree days seemed destined to end. To save the family fortune, her father promised her hand to an eccentric old duke. Even worse, she discovered that far from halting the proceedings, her beloved James was a party to them!

Yet all was not lost ...from a totally unexpected quarter, a mysterious stranger would enter her life -- and promise to make her tenderest dream of love come true.