[2] The beautiful Venetia Lanyon, thanks to a reclusive and over-protective father, grew up in the country, away from the world with only her younger brother Aubrey, bookish and lame, for company.

Her peace and quiet is one day disturbed by the rakish Lord Damerel, who arrives to spend time at his ancestral home next to the Lanyons' house.

At first, she sensibly keeps away from him, but when Lord Damerel finds an injured Aubrey and not only takes him into his home to recover but also treats him with great kindness and strikes up a friendship with the awkward young man, she revises her first opinion of him and they soon become the best of friends.

When Venetia's older brother's wife and mother-in-law, about whom he had failed to inform the family, descend on the Lanyons, Venetia's domestic situation becomes intolerable and she is invited to stay for a London season with her aunt and uncle as a way to escape the awkwardness and also to find a husband.

During this time, she discovers through a chance encounter that the mother she had been led to believe was dead is actually very much alive and had simply left her father for another man when the children were very young.