Serena Fairburn should have been the happiest of young ladies - for she could look forward to the best of marriages. Soon she would be bride to the fabulously wealthy Duke of Cornwell, and her family would be rescued from financial ruin. Surely she should not look this golden gift horse in the mouth? She should not worry that the Duke was smitten with another woman, one more beautiful and talented than she; or that his mother was bent on keeping an iron grip on her son; or that his cousin, the devilishly handsome, rakish Earl of Lynton, made Serena feel as the Duke never did. Desperately Serena told herself that wedding bells would drown out those discordant notes - even as the beating of her heart rose to a dangerous pitch in the presence and power of a man she could not afford to love.