Annie, a young widow with a 10-year-old son, Davie, is happy enough and is contemplating marriage to a gentle, decent, middle-aged man who is comfortably well off and gets on well with Davie. But - Annie is 28 years old and wants something more. Her mother, herself long widowed and living in Suffolk, urges her to marry for Davie's sake if not for her own. So Annie accepts Fergus' proposal.
Apparently by chance, Annie meets a man of her own age, Richard, to whom she is immediately attracted and who clearly feels the same. He's fun, charismatic and runs a family firm of solicitors with offices in London and Paris. She knows infatuation doesn't last and, to be fair, Richard also seems wary, having been let down in love before.
As the plot unfolds, we discover that Richard arranged his first meeting with Annie. He has been hired by a wealthy, eccentric Frenchman to track down his grandson in order to make him his heir. Davie is the grandson but Richard holds back that information from Annie as he has an agenda of his own . . .
