Margaret Huxtable is thirty years old and has finally decided to do the sensible thing and get married. She arrives in London during the Season full of hope. But first she meets the widowed Crispin Dew, who years ago had betrayed their secret betrothal and married someone else, and next she learns that the man she had hoped to marry is engaged to another woman.

Then she runs (literally) into the Earl of Sheringford, who is in such total disgrace with the ton that he has not dared show his face in town for five years and would not be there now if he were not in such desperate need of a bride.