Caroline Ashfield has led the life familiar to many a woman of her station. Married off for social and political connection to a much older man, she led a life of privilege, but also of emotional discomfort. Now, though, her husband has been dead many years and she has enjoyed the freedom being a widow of a certain age has granted her. She can do what she wants, read what she enjoys and support her scandalous nieces to her heart’s desire. Everything is perfect. Well, except for one thing: her constant thoughts about celebrated courtesan Simone Stanford.

Simone is also an independent woman, though certainly from a very different path, and she would tell everyone in her orbit that she wants nothing more than exactly what she has. Her playful interactions with the very proper Caroline were at first just for fun, but somehow they’ve become much more serious and left ripples in their wake she never expected. Now something is awakening between them and it feels like it could change everything for both of them.

An escalating passion and a secret affair are one thing, but when a moment arrives when they could find true happiness will they embrace it? Or let the pains of the past and fears of the future snatch true love from their arms?