When Lord Cardross married 18 year old Lady Helen he also undertook the task of staving off financial disaster for her father, and settled the more pressing gambling debts of her brother. Has Lady Helen only married him for his money?
In Venice, Frances Croy is working to leave the previous year behind: another novel published to little success, a scathing review she can't quite manage to forget, and, most of all, the real reason behind her self-imposed exile from London: the incident at the Savoy. Sequestered within an aging palazzo, Frankie finds comfort in the emptiness of Venice in winter, in the absence of others. And then Gilly appears.