In the third of the books about the Ashleigh family, Antonia, now nineteen, returns to England to prepare for her wedding to wealthy banker Edward Vanderberg, whom she met while visiting her sister Lucy in New York. On board ship, she has a chance encounter with charming Henry Archer, the young man she fell in love with when she was a girl of fifteen. Henry, a Harvard medical student, is on his way to Devonshire to claim his inheritance and although the old alchemy between them soon flares, Antonia is determined to honour her engagement to Edward for whom she has a genuine affection and regard. Six years later, Antonia, now tragically widowed, travels a home once again with her sick child. She turns to Henry Archer, now a qualified physician, for help. But when she refuses to accept his diagnosis of her son's illness, matters become strained between them. Henry is proved right but when he announces his engagement to beautiful socialite, Caroline Fielding, Antonia is forced to face up to her feelings for him. Is it too late to find happiness with Henry? Or will another cruel twist of fate keep them apart?