The beautiful Cassandra Sherburn has, everything a young lady, could possibly desire. Slender, flame-haired and alabaster-skinned and the heiress to her father's immense fortune, her father has promised her hand in marriage to the dashing young Marquis of Charlbury, heir to the ancestral home and estates of the Duke of Alchester and she believes that she is in love with him. And, over the years she has collected newspaper cuttings about him and pasted...

The tenth Earl of Narbrooke is a miser. He is obsessed with money and is prepared to starve himself as well as his household and will not give a penny to his family even though he is the Head of it. He has locked himself away in his vast mansion and neglects the estate until it becomes a disgrace. Colonel Euan Campbell, who had been wounded in the War with Napoleon, is very hard-up and accepts the position of managing the Earl's horses. He is given...