Lady Annalise Sheridan, sister to the Duke of Winchester, embarks upon her second season, uninterested in any of the gentlemen vying for her attention. She has already settled her interest upon Clarence Vaughan, the Earl of Romsey. As a seasoned diplomat acting on behalf of his majesty's government, he is quite the most intelligent, captivating and handsome man she has ever met and she is completely besotted by him. But her efforts to attract him are interrupted when she is abducted from a society ball, and her life hangs in the balance.

The duke and his brothers hold Clarence responsible for Annalise's disappearance. So too does Clarence, who berates himself for allowing his interest in her to become apparent. He should have anticipated that enemies of the state would use Annalise to bend him to their will.

Annalise outwits her captors, leaving Clarence and her brothers to try and establish the reasons behind her abduction while she wrestles with the weightier difficulty of getting Clarence to fall in love with her. She soon discovers Clarence is a slave to duty and doesn't have the remotest idea how to relax, even if he is very capable of arousing her passions. Refusing to give up on him, she sets about trying to change that situation, unwittingly causing more problems for them both than she actually resolves.

Can two such diametrically opposed characters ever find happiness together...