When Francesca Wallingford first meets Count Philippe de la Croix, he turns her head. But then an old friend, Alfred Finley, returns to the society that scorned him years ago. A summer in Newport, Rhode Island, with its sequence of balls and cotillions, pits both men in a quest for Francesca's hand. But what role does love and honor play when Francesca's mother has her own agenda for her daughter to become a countess?