Anthea Forthingdale and her sisters Thais, Chloe and Phebe have all been named after famous poems. All very beautiful, after their father’s death at Waterloo the girls and their lovely mother, Christobel, are alone and isolated, living in poverty in a small Yorkshire village. Struggling for money and appropriate suitors for her daughter, In May 1819 Lady Forthingdale writes to an old friend, the Countess of Sheldon in London and asks if she will have her Godchild Anthea to stay for the rest of the London Season. The Countess is delighted to have Anthea as her guest because otherwise her husband wishes her to leave for the country. How Anthea meets the handsome Duke of Axminster in her Godmother’s house, how he appears bored and contemptuous with her when they dance at Almack’s, how Anthea caricatures the Duke with far-reaching and dramatic results and how she learns never to laugh at love, is told in this 182nd book by Barbara Cartland.