In the early summer of 1815, while the Battle of Waterloo is just a threat, Brussels is the most exciting city in Europe and many of the British aristocracy have rented homes there.
The novel opens in the home of Lord and Lady Worth, where several of their friends are discussing the precarious situation in Belgium.
When the other guests leave, Judith (Lady Worth)'s brother, Sir Peregrine Taverner (Perry), expresses his fears about remaining in Brussels, especially since his wife, Harriet is expecting their third child.
Charles Audley (who is a member of Wellington's staff and is still in Vienna) will fall in love with her new friend, Miss Lucy Devenish.
This leads her husband to accuse her of trying to play matchmaker and remark, "I perceive that life in Brussels is going to be even more interesting than I had expected."
Amongst the fashionable ton partying in the metropolis, Lady Barbara Childe (the granddaughter of Dominic, Duke of Avon) is making her mark.
Lady Barbara, or Bab as she is called by her family and friends, is a young widow of great beauty and charm who can make any man fall in love with her.
Her elder brother, the Marquis of Vidal highly disapproves of his sister's flirtations and is annoyed that she has made herself the talk of fashionable society.
However, Charles seems to have made an impression on Bab for she confesses to Lady Vidal that she has lost her heart to a younger son.
Some time later, Charles asks Bab to marry him and she accepts, but not before warning him that she would make a terrible wife and that she might change her mind in a week.
After the party, George and Bab discuss her engagement, revealing the depth of her feelings for Charles as well as her reasons for being so callous a flirt.
The next day, Barbara goes in search of Charles, desperate to make peace with him before the battle, only to learn from Judith Audley that he has gone.
The marriage had been kept secret because neither the Duke of Avon (George's grandfather) nor Lucy's uncle Mr. Fisher would have approved of the match.
As the situation becomes more and more desperate, the two women become close, Barbara is finally showing her true inner strength and courage.
Seeing this, Colonel Sir John Colborne leads his regiment, the Fighting 52nd, across the battlefield from the right flank and Wellington calls for a general advance of Peregrine Maitland's Grenadier Guards, completing the French rout.
Although he is not the carefree young man he once was, Charles proposes once more to Bab, telling her to take out the ring that she had given back to him, "there it stays until I give you another in its place".
R. Habenicht Casson of The Macon Telegraph called the novel a "readable and well written account of a great period in history and a charming story".
"[1] The St. Joseph News-Press praised her depiction of the Battle of Waterloo, writing that she "has breathed reality into the pages of history" with her "masterful handling", which made "what would ordinarily be a mass of unwieldy detail" into a "cohesive picture".
[2] The Sacramento Bee wrote that the novel "evidences her minute research, but avoids the decorative conjecture, prophesy, and personal prejudice that often obscure the outlines of history or biography."
Of the Battle of Waterloo scene, the newspaper stated that Heyer had "handled it with spirit, and a great deal of interest and clarity are achieved with unwieldy material.