For years publisher Theophilus Camlet has been discreetly distributing a pamphlet with some of the most incendiary information in Victorian England: birth control. When he is arrested for distributing pornography Marian's worst enemy seizes his chance to destroy her most valuable possession: her marriage. To save her husband's sanity Marian agrees to a false death certificate. But how long can she live as an impoverished widow and mother, when her man has fled to America?