Times have been tough for young Lady Canèda Lang and her brother Harry and they neither seek nor expect help from the aristocratic French family that ostracised their mother Clémentine de Bantôme in their outrage at her running away to marry their father, Gerald Lang, whom they considered beneath her.
Worse still, the couple incurred the wrath of the much older and powerful Duc de Saumac, to whom Clémentine was betrothed and so a bitter vendetta began.
Then, overnight, Harry discovers that he is now an Earl! He has unexpectedly inherited the Earldom of Langstone with an ancestral Castle and a large and prosperous estate.
Hearing the news, their French grandmother invites them to stay - evidently the de Bantômes have fallen on hard times themselves and now have the nerve to ask for help.
Apparently their vines have contracted the deadly phylloxera disease that is ravaging vineyards all over Europe and has badly damaged the family's finances.
Harry is determined to refuse the invitation, but Canèda is set on journeying to the Dordogne to meet the family and the Duc de Saumac - and to wreak her revenge on them for all the years of misery they have caused..
But on arrival it is not hatred but love that she finds in beautiful Périgord!