Beginning in 1783, this book tells the story of Lady Francesca Ballinger, daughter of the Earl of Marchmont. Her father had promised her in marriage to the Margrave of Gorava when the Margrave was two years old and Francesca was a baby. In the intervening sixteen years Francesca and her fiance have never met.At the start of the book Francesca, now a headstrong beauty, is leaving England to travel to the Margrave's estates in the Carparthian mountains where the marriage is supposed to take place. Unknown to anyone else, Francesca and one of her bodyguards are planning to elope on the way, but her plans go catastrophically wrong and she falls into the hands of a mysterious, sinister man known as "le Diable." Soon she is caught up in plots, intrigue, rebellion and romance