Venetia was very lonely after the death of her parents. So when her cousin Mary begged her to help to save her from a forced marriage, Venetia was ready. Mary was in love with another man and expecting his child. Yet the Queen wanted her to marry the Earl of Mountwood at a moment's notice and go with him to India. A reckless impulse made Venetia promise to take Mary's place at the altar. She would worry about the consequences later.

"How could you, Mama? Papa has not even been dead a year!" When the beautiful Lucia Mountford's mother remarries less than a year after her father's death on the Titanic, she is shocked when the family's fortunes suddenly go into rapid decline and her mother becomes ill. Deeply in debt, her stepfather borrows a considerable sum of money from the handsome but roguish Lord Winterton.

Michael Belmont is heir to an Earldom, but he is also the family black sheep, a charming gambler leading a dissolute life in France. He has quarrelled with his father, who has threatened to disinherit him. When he reads in a newspaper that his father has died, he does not even have enough money for his fare home. But then he meets the beautiful young Lady Verna, seeking a chauffeur to drive her car home to England. Michael volunteers and while they are on the journey he falls under her spell.

She was fleeing from an unwelcome marriage and so was he. When Selina sought shelter with the Marquis of Castleton, she never dreamed that it would lead to them being chased across Europe in a powerful yacht. Before long she was embroiled in a rollicking adventure. Dressed as a man to avoid detection, Selina fell into one scrape after another, yet always knowing that the Marquis would rescue her. But she was despairingly sure that he saw her only as a child and she was beginning to long for more.

The Marquis of Wynstanton had become involved with one of the beauties of London Society - Locadi, Lady Marshall and when her husband died unexpectedly, the Marquis set out on a long journey to India and Nepal, as he wished to avoid any gossip arising about their liaison. After his return, he resumed the affair, staying on in London for some time when he should have gone straight to Wyn Castle and his country estate. Then he began to suspect that Locadi was using black magic to entice him to her and to induce him to propose marriage.