When her stepmother is murdered, Lady Felicity Armstrong learns that her yearly income will barely cover the cost of food, but she has a secret. While the manor house at Rosendale is being inventoried to cover her stepmother's debts, Lady Felicity discovers something in her birth mother's dressing table that will give her hope of a brighter future. She also has a plan, which she hopes will bear fruit, and deliver her from a life of poverty. Two years later, she is waiting for her plan to bear fruit, and struggling to survive. Her young maid, Millie, a plucky urchin whose devotion to her lady is irrefutable, has taught Felicity how to live without a cadre of servants, and she has helped Millie shed her provincial accent. While their life is far from ideal, they have each other.One day, a man comes to the cottage without warning. When he introduces himself as Lord Dudley Winston, Lady Felicity remembers him as a neighbor during her years at Rosendale. Despite his breach of etiquette, which irritates Lady Felicity, she offers him tea, all the while believing that his breach of etiquette is a consequence of her reduced circumstances. His explanation for the visit does little to dispel that notion.Following his visit, Lady Felicity recalls a day when he and his father came to Rosendale. An adolescent in the throws of her first crush, Felicity finds Dudley fascinating, but is is frustrated by his lack of attention. Those dim memories do nothing to satisfy her curiosity about Lord Winston's arrival in Tolwich, but she knows someone who might remember - her former housekeeper, Mrs. Muir. She writes to Mrs. Muir, who sends her train fare, and an invitation to visit. As she boards the train to Whitley, she has no inkling of events to come, or of her parents' lethal legacy.
