Elderly widow Lady Fortescue and her friends hatch up a scheme to escape from genteel poverty. If each of them can relieve a rich relative of an expensive trifle, they can gain funds to turn her townhouse into a hotel for the ton! Lady Fortescue's nephew, the devilishly handsome and haughty Duke of Rowcester, is horrified. There must be something wrong with his aunt's wits, to stoop to trade! He is resolved to see her folly shut down...until he encounters the hotel chef, Miss Harriet James, a green-eyed beauty who once intrigued him on the ballroom floor. Harriet's heart skips a beat as she remembers that waltz with the duke-before she lost her parents and inherited their debts. Indeed, when Rowcester steals a delicious kiss, she heatedly questions his intentions. Will she, however, allow the other poor relations to dampen his ardor?