Charlotte Wyndham had resigned herself to a life of poverty and drudgery in London after her father's imprisonment for fraud had left her disgraced and cast out of aristocratic society before she had even completed her first season. Alone in the world, Charlotte had abandoned her dreams of a wealthy future, and with them her dreams of falling in love and marrying. In nineteenth-century England, her family's disgrace meant she could never hope to find a suitable husband.
But then Charlotte's childhood friend, Verity Conniston, rescues her from her miserable London existence and takes her to live on the beautiful Conniston estate in the Kent countryside. There Charlotte slowly rebuilds her life as she becomes like family to Verity, her husband Guy and their daughters. But how long can this idyllic life last before her family's past returns to haunt her? When Ket, Guy's handsome younger brother, returns home, Charlotte finally realises that there are still some dreams that she can never hope to come true