An American BeautyAn American Beauty

1867, Richmond, Virginia. Arabella wears the same low-cut purple gown that is the uniform of all the girls who work at Worsham's gambling parlor, yet she is set apart by her unyielding grit, and a resolve to escape her background of struggle and poverty. Collis Huntington, railroad baron and self-made multimillionaire, is married and thirty years her senior, yet flirtation rapidly escalates into an affair. With Collis's help, Arabella eventually moves to New York, posing as a genteel, well-to-do Southern widow. Using Collis's seed money and her own shrewd investing instincts, she begins to amass a fortune. Collis marries Arabella after his wife's death, but she must earn her place in Society. There are some who suspect the scandalous truth, and will blackmail her for it. -- adapted from back cover