When her sister disappears from a finishing school in San Francisco and a well-known detective agency proves unable to track her down, Victoria Bennett leaves Boston and boards a train for California, planning to enroll at the school herself in order to continue the search in secret. But traveling across the country in 1883 is not without danger, and when train robbers corner Victoria in her sleeping berth it is only through the boldness and quick thinking of brash, handsome fellow passenger Ben Hudson that she is kept safe. Though he does his best to convince himself that Victoria is far too prim and proper for his tastes, Ben cannot keep the beautiful, spirited young woman off his mind, and the day after their arrival in San Francisco he decides to call upon her. When he arrives at the finishing school where Victoria had planned to enroll, however, he is informed that no student there matches her description. Now certain that something is deeply amiss, Ben begins an investigation of his own. After being shown to her room on her first night at Miss Cora Holmes' academy for young ladies, Victoria is shocked to awaken in an unfamiliar place. More disturbing still is the fact that she is naked, bound, and helpless. Her humiliation only increases as she is thoroughly and intimately examined in front of a room full of men, and her efforts to resist the shameful procedure merely earn her a stern punishment which leaves her bottom sore both inside and out. Victoria soon discovers that she has been taken captive for a very specific purpose. She will be trained not only to obey every command of her future master, but to beg for more as she is bared, punished, and made to please him in any way he demands. Once her training is complete, she will be put on display before an audience and auctioned off to the highest bidder. But when a man claiming to be a potential buyer turns out to be none other than Ben Hudson, does it mean that she badly misjudged