Stripped of her pride and damned by her passion, she was the last of a fallen dynasty. As heir to the richest plantation in the South, Cynthia Deavors enjoyed the privilege of royalty. But her roots were cursed by corruption. She couldn't control her twin brother's decadent lust for female slaves, or suppress her mother's shameless affair with a young adventurer. Nor could she deny the raging love that swept her from the pinnacle of wealth and power into the path of the one scheming woman who haunted the Deavors family ... Rafaella.