Lucy Kincaid endures a life of loneliness and drudgery in her stepmother's house on Ireland's windswept coast.  All she has to sustain her are her dreams, until the day the golden stranger appears on a cliff-- a stranger who gazes at her with love in his eyes and poetry on his lips.  Lucy's heart is lost-- until she realizes that he is the enemy: a despised Englishman, the man whose family stole her birthright. Once upon a passion Raphael Montagu, eight Duke of Southwell, searches futility for the mysterious Irish beauty he'd loved at first sight, certain that only she can heal his wounded heart.  But when fate finally returns her to him at a London ball, she denies ever having seen him before.  And when he claims her with a kiss and a vow of eternal love, she vanishes once again, leaving him with no clue as to her identity.  His only hope is to travel back to Ireland to uncover the mystery that drove her from his side-- and finally claim her for his own. . .