It is the first novel of Quinn's series of Regency romances about the Bridgerton siblings and tells the story of Daphne, the fourth child and eldest daughter of the family.

Going to meet his godmother, Lady Danbury, Simon discovers a young woman being harassed by an overly-pushy suitor.

Simon quickly finds that as a handsome, wealthy and unmarried duke he is considered an extremely eligible bachelor.

As Daphne is the only reasonable woman whose company he can bear, he offers to pretend to court her so that other men will see her as attractive and so that enterprising mothers will think he is spoken for and leave him alone.

Through the housekeeper's vague insinuations Daphne also realizes that Simon has been purposefully preventing her from having children by pulling out as they have sex and is not infertile as she was led to believe.

This leads to a rift between the married couple and Daphne decides not to have sex with Simon as long as he does not want to have children.

Later, after he returns home drunk Daphne has sex with him while he is barely conscious and then, ignoring his feeble protests, forces him to finish inside of her in an effort to become pregnant despite his wishes.

A quick glance at his face told her that he was still sleeping…She felt so powerful looming over him…His eyes pinned upon her with a strange, pleading sort of look, and he made a feeble attempt to pull away.

Daphne bore down on him with all her might….She planted her hands underneath him, using all of her strength to hold him against her.Described as one of the toxic plot points of their relationship, it drew further criticism due to the fact that the violation of consent was never addressed as morally wrong in the novel.

[4][5] Critics pointed out that it failed to acknowledge the difficulties of male victims of rape, especially since Simon was traumatized after the event.

This complete loss of speech, this choking, strangling feeling—He had worked his entire life to escape it, and now she had brought it back with a vengeance.Quinn has stated that readers' reactions to the scene have changed since the book's publication in 2000.

Like the novel, the sixth episode of the Netflix adaptation, entitled "Swish", drew criticism with regards to the non-consensual nature of Simon and Daphne's lovemaking.