The Famous Heroine — Mary Balogh

The Uncommon Commoner

Miss Cora Downes was only a merchant's daughter. But when she saved a duke's son from drowning, her reward was entry into London high society. Cora had a style of beauty and mode of manners that made her a fish out of water in that sophisticated world. But when she saved a highborn lady's poodles from disaster, she became the belle of every ball.

Cora had never met a man like the exquisitely elegant, unabashedly blue-blooded Lord Francis Kneller. But when they found themselves in a position too compromising to conceal, nothing could save her from a marriage to a man who would surely disdain her as a wife. Nothing could save her then from the threat of heartbreak -- nothing, perhaps, except a most unlikely love....