ORPHANED. BETRAYED. DETERMINED.

Angélique Latham has grown up at magnificent Belgrave Castle under the loving tutelage of her father, the Duke of Westerfield, after the death of her aristocratic French mother. At eighteen she is her father's closest, most trusted child, schooled in managing their grand estate. But when he dies, her half-brothers brutally turn her out, denying her very existence. Angélique has a keen mind, remarkable beauty and an envelope of money her father pressed upon her. To survive, she will need all her resources - and one bold stroke of fortune.

Unable to secure employment without references or connections, Angélique desperately makes her way to Paris, where she rescues a young woman cast out on the street and sees a possibility for her future. With her upper-class breeding, her impeccable style and her father's bequest Angélique, keeping her true identity a secret, takes an unfamiliar and unimaginable path in setting up what becomes a highly successful business. But she lives on the edge of scandal, so can she ever make a life of her own - or regain her rightful place in the world?

From England to Paris and New York, Danielle Steel captures an age of upheaval and the struggles of women in a male-ruled society - and paints a captivating portrait of a woman of unquenchable spirit, who in houses great or humble is every ounce a duchess.