The tenth Earl of Berham does not know what to do. An attractive thirty-two-year-old bachelor, he has been appointed guardian of the young Freddie Armstrong, the eighteen-year-old grandson of his late father's dear friend. That's bad enough. Then he discovers that the boy is really a girl! It is against all convention and against his personal code to keep a young lady concealed in his own home. He must find a solution.

The earl's frequent visitor, Lady Clarissa Rennenord, heartily agrees—but for less noble reasons. Lady Clarissa hopes to snare the earl in marriage and does not want any competition. She recommends that Freddie be sent to a seminary. No one but Lady Rennenord knows what a horrid place it is—and no one, including Lady Rennenord, expects Freddie to escape. Now Freddie is back, and the earl finds her presence unsettling in more ways than one.