Young Alexia Erskine is swept up into a glamorous world that she hardly knew existed when she attends the first debutante ball of the Season.
As the guest of the Clifton family, Alexia first encounters Simon Seymour, dashing heir to the Earl of Clifton, and his rather more serious handsome cousin, Roderick Davenport. Her relationship with Simon develops, culminating in an engagement that shocks the Clifton "set", for Alexia is a nobody whose father gambled away his fortune. But after the honeymoon, Alexia begins to realise that nothing is as it seems, and the image of a happy, aristocratic family living in contented splendour is all smoke and mirrors...
