The tenth earl of Berham does not know what to do. An attractive thirty-two-year-old bachelor, he has been appointed guardian of the young Freddie Armstrong, the eighteen-year-old grandson of his late father's dear friend. That's bad enough. Then he discovers that the boy is really a girl! It is against all convention and against his personal code to keep a young lady concealed in his own home. He must find a solution. The earl's frequent visitor, Lady Clarissa Rennenord, heartily agrees-but for less noble reasons. Lady Clarissa hopes to snare the earl in marriage and does not want any competition. She recommends that Freddie be sent to a seminary. No one but Lady Rennenord knows what a horrid place it is-and no one, including Lady Rennenord, expects Freddie to escape. Now Freddie is back, and the earl finds her presence unsettling in more ways than one.