She was the toast of London -- a breathtaking vision every woman envied and every man longed to possess. Few would have dreamed this violet-eyed beauty was the precocious child of a country schoolmaster ... the feisty girl who had spurned the "fairy tale prince" to surrender her innocence to his illegitimate brother... the young woman who had come to London with nothing but a broken heart -- and a fierce determination to survive. Now she was a celebrated actress; immortalized on canvas by Gainsborough; adored by the playwright who made her his star; desired by the golden-haired lord obsessed with making her his lady ... and still tormented with longing for the man who had branded her very soul with his passion, and who has now returned to reawaken past splendors of a love he means to reclaim...