Lovely Rosaleen Fleming is used to being talked about. As the daughter of an Earl and his mistress, she's heard the rumors and snide remarks made behind her back. Instead of shying away she instead does her best to act the perfect hoyden - convinced that if they're going to talk about her anyway, she'll give them something to talk about.
Her tactics take her through an unhappy childhood, but when she meets the dashing Lucien St. Cyr and he convinces her that she's just harming herself, she admits he's right and sets of for Europe - on a mission to refine and reinvent herself.
Returning five years later, she's horrified to learn that her dashing hero has gone into a drunken debaucherous tailspin- once the picture of propriety and elegance, he's taken to gambling, and all other sorts of ungentlemanly pursuits. Lucien rejects her attempts to mend him, but when his mistress ends up dead, and then Rosaleen and her mother both receive the "Temptress" notes that are the murderer's calling card, he knows its time to face his demons and his heart.
