The Impoverished Heiress

"Samantha, may I present Major Wyndham Crawford?" The Major bowed stiffly, hiding his surprise with difficulty. This tall, slender woman was dressed so modestly, he would never have taken her for Phineas Crawford's granddaughter.

Samantha, too, was startled. The heir to her grandfather's estate was neither old nor ugly. But her store of surprises was far from exhausted. She had yet to discover that she was not a young heiress with pleasant prospects, but a penniless pauper, forced to seek employment in a cold, forbidding world, or submit to the proud will of an arrogant -- and irresistible -- master.