She dreams of marrying a nobleman. Too bad he's only pretending to be one. Cecilia Cosgrove's beauty opens doors and hearts everywhere she goes. With a marquess courting her, the status and wealth her family is counting on her to obtain is finally within her reach-until she meets Jacques Levesque, the French nobleman who immediately pegs her as affected and superficial. While piqued and offended, Cecilia secretly begins to wonder whether he might not have a point. Poor French émigré Jacques Levesque has been disguised as a French nobleman for almost as long as he can remember, trying his hardest to keep his head down in a society obsessed with rank and high birth. But when Cecilia Cosgrove comes into his life, he finds it hard to maintain his façade-or to want to. While Cecilia struggles between the desire to please others and the wish to pursue her own course, Jacques's interest in her provokes a powerful enemy intent on taking him down. With love, acceptance, and the future on the line for them both, Cecilia and Jacques must decide whether a life lived behind a mask is any life at all.