Lady Ophelia Winter is quite content with her life, except that she does not like her name and rejects every possible suitor she's introduced to. Her father does not know how to cope with his headstrong daughter, but Lord Winter, the Viscount of Hethersett, is determined to find a good match for her. When Ophelia finds and reads a letter addressed to her father, she discovers a shocking truth about herself, her heritage, and her life that she did not expect.

Although difficult, she learns to accept her new reality. Things seem to go rather well for a while until she clashes with some of the young ladies of the ton about Lord Garrett Haywood, the Duke of Ashford. The young man confuses her. On the one hand, he appears to be an arrogant and self-absorbed aristocrat, nearly engaged to someone else, yet her heart is to be hopelessly lost shortly after she meets him. When the young woman stands up and protects a maid from her employer for a second time and witnesses a conversation not meant for her ears, she does not expect to unearth a collection of dark secrets that connects several families at once.