Eight years ago, Felicity, Lady Wren, married a wealthy older man in order to save her family from financial ruin. Now, widowed and free again, she yearns to experience all the bright pleasures of a busy social life with the ton. She longs for romance at last and a new marriage to someone young, handsome, and charming. She fixes her interest upon a charismatic lord with a rakish reputation and dreams of changing him.
Tom Russell, childhood friend of Felicity's, has never forgotten the passion that flared between them all too briefly before she chose Wren instead of him. But when she turns to him for support in her search for a new husband, he puts his own feelings aside in order to be the friend she needs. Even when she enlists his aid in making her lord jealous, he goes along with her scheme.
Tom is perhaps too selfless and good-natured for his own good. And Felicity is perhaps too much in denial about her true feelings for her dearest friend.