TIRED OF TOWN AND TON, ARABELLA VAUGHN CANNOT BEAR ANOTHER LONDON SEASON. — And so she is dutifully awaiting an offer of marriage from peacockish Lord Estes--especially the wealth that comes with the offer, which will save her father from debtors' prison. — But on a moonlit ride across Hounslow Heath, Arabella has a violent change of heart. For there, she meets a broad-shouldered stranger whose velvet eyes and manly ways make the effeminate Estes pale by comparison.

But Arabella's father is suddenly determined to marry her to the rich illegitimate son of the Earl of Woodthrope, and she will have neither Estes nor the stranger after all. Or will she? ...