In the dazzling salons and ballrooms of Regency England there are the incomparables and there are the spinsters in training. Perpetual wallflower Charlotte Woodbridge, feels doomed to remain on the shelf, with no interest from any of the men who attend these high society functions. This all changes when she meets a penniless cousin of the Brazilian Ambassador and begins to hope that perhaps a man could care for her after all.
Ricardo Zarco da Camara, the heir to the Marquisates of Camara, is tired of his life of wealthy privilege. He longs to go somewhere where people can see him as he is and not just care for him because of his title and his wealth. Caught up in pretending to be only an impoverished relative, he starts to suspect that he might truly love the enchanting young woman he first met in the library. But now he is stuck with the difficulty of identifying whether she truly cares for him in return and moreover, if she will ever forgive him for lying to her.