They call her Duchess, even though Viola Corbett is really an illegitimate shop girl. But nobility is more than bloodlines, and the tall, auburn-haired Viola has some thing most real duchesses lack: a stunning beauty and grace that awe the other shop girls- and bring the gentlemen of turn-of-the-century London to her feet.

Four men are in love with Duchess. Sam Hardcastle, the gentle Leeds shop owner who has to send her away to London. Lord James Staffray, the dashing young officer who has everything- money, prestige, adventure, and an irresistible longing for Viola. Artur Netherby, the cruel, tormented owner of the "live-in" store where Duchess works. And finally Count Eugene Erhmann, the worldly Australian who foresees that the lovely girl will become a magnificent woman.

But Duchess wants only one man, an aristocrat whose family will never consent to marriage. Nothing can make her more than a common shop girl in their eyes--nothing, and certainly not her past: her splendid, heedless affair, her illegitimate child, and her scandalous trial for murder. Yet Josephine Edgar's Duchess is more than a common shop girl and her story much more than a simple romance. It is the haunting tale of a society ruled by conventions--and the beautiful, passionate woman who shattered them all.