"A political marriage is nothing but this."

Fifteen-year-old Countess Theodesia, with her debut just three months away, was told by her father that her marriage had been arranged. The one who proposed to the declining but prestigious Canning family was Marquis Marks, the son of the Darlington Earl's family at court—a 27-year-old who had devoted himself to work and missed his chance at marriage. Theodesia, who had been raised to believe that love had no place in aristocratic marriages and that political marriages were the norm, thought Marks, though awkward, seemed to be a sincere and good husband. However, her married life begins to take a shape different from what she had imagined.