Elise is stunned when she is summoned by her grandmother and told she is betrothed to the cousin of Baron Socton or she and her mother will be cast out of the cottage they were banished to when her father died. To save her mother, Elise agrees. Hunter seems a mild man who might even agree to let her mother come live with them. But as she goes to her grandmother's house to be fitted for her trousseau, a stranger waylays her. And he demands a 'toll' to let her continue. Torn between honor and desire, Elise discovers no one in her family is what they seem. And then she discovers why Hunter wants to marry her.