Lady Tamina Braithwaite is excited and happy to be secretly engaged to the handsome politician, Edmund Newson. However she is devastated when she discovers he is already betrothed to another girl. Determined to flee the country to heal her broken heart, she takes a job with Ivan, the Earl of Daventry who is about to travel abroad and needs a secretary to help him with a book he is writing. Pretending to be plain Miss Waites, Tamina is unaware that the Earl has also recently been betrayed by a close friend. The Earl and Tamina sail on the liner, the Blue Diamond, towards the beautiful island of Madeira. It is a fateful voyage with the discovery of a stowaway as the Earl and Tamina become increasingly attached to each other. How Tamina's deception is uncovered and how her dreams eventually come true is all told in this dramatic romance by BARBARA CARTLAND.