When fate and a chivalrous impulse combine to saddle Viscount Desford with a friendless, homeless waif in the engaging shape of Cherry Steane, who else should he turn to in a scrape but his childhood playmate, Henrietta Silverdale? For although they refused to oblige their parents by marrying they have always been the best of friends.
But as Desford pursues Cherry's lickpenny grandfather and reprobate father around unfashionable watering places and the seedier fringe of society, Hetta is forced to wonder if he might not, at last, have fallen in love. Without the timely intervention of his scapegrace brother Simon and Hetta's worthy suitor Gary Nethercott, Desford is in danger of making a rare bumblebroth of his affairs.
