In the five years since Lady Mariah Beecham, the widowed Countess of Carlisle, lost her husband, rumors have proliferated throughout society about how she's used her great beauty to take on a string of lovers. Believing those rumors, Darian Hunter, the Duke of Wolfingham, approached Mariah to ask her to leave his younger brother alone. The rumors are, however, baseless-Lady Mariah has never truly been loved by any man. Unable to endure his rebuke, she attempts to push him aside, but just then, the duke faints in her arms!