The only thing Lady Johanna has in abundance is desperation¿ and she is willing to do far worse things than marry a duke to save her family. Lady Johanna's brother, the young and impoverished Earl of Falmouth, cannot support the family. With no marriage prospects of her own, Lady Johanna has little hope of saving her mother and siblings from slow starvation until her brother's guardian offers to secretly send her to auction at a bawdy house. The misfortune that dogged the family since her father's death quickly turns when the Lord of Luck himself, the rakish Duke of St. Albans, sees her on the stage. With one flip of his lucky coin, Lady Johanna goes from rags to riches, from total ruin to betrothed to the richest duke of the ton overnight. For the first time in years, her family will be provided for, their futures assured and bright. Yet as Lady Johanna begins to believe in her own luck, her mother reveals a secret so shocking it threatens not only Johanna's chance at happily ever after, but the family's very survival.