Respected spinster Miss Emily Winbolt, so cool and cynical with would-be suitors, puts her reputation at risk after tumbling into a stranger's arms. Suddenly, bleak loneliness is replaced with a wanton, exciting sense of abandon.

But Emily is an heiress, and her rescuer none other than Sir William Ashenden, a man of some distinction. He needs to marry, and she yearns to believe that William wants plain, upright, suddenly reckless Emily—not for her fortune, but for herself….