"In 1852, on a steamer from France to England, nineteen-year-old Theresa Longworth met William Charles Yelverton, a soldier destined to become the Viscount Avonmore. The flirtation began that soon blossomed into a clandestine, epistolary affair, ranging from the shores of England to the battlefields of the Crimean War. Five years after their first meeting they married secretly in Edinburgh, and then, that same summer, at Theresa's urging, they married again that summer in Dublin--or did they? Theresa and Charles would never live together as man and wife. And when Yelverton then married another woman, an abandoned Theresa found herself forced to prove the validity of her marriage. Multiple trials ensued, in Ireland, England, and Scotland, and for months their scandal captivated society: every detail of the proceedings was reorted in the press, songwriters dedicated ballads to Theresa, and novelists such as Wilkie Collins borrowed the courtroom melodrama for their plots. Over the course of the very public ordeal, Theresa lost any chance of a private married life so prized."--Jacket.