Diana Cooke was “born with the century” and came of age just after World War I. The daughter of Virginia gentry, she knew early on that, other than her famous beauty, her parents had only one asset: their stately house, Saratoga. Though they are land rich, the Cookes do not have the means to sustain the estate. Without a wealthy husband, Diana will lose the mansion that has served as the fabric holding her family together for five generations.

The enigmatic Captain Copperton is a stranger in the ranks of Southern aristocracy with no pedigree but plenty of cash. Seeing the ravishing nineteen-year-old Diana for the first time, he’s determined to have her. Diana knows that marrying him would make the Cookes solvent and ensure that Saratoga will always be theirs. Yet Copperton is vulgar as well as cruel; while Diana covets his money, she cannot abide him. Carrying the weight of Saratoga and generations of Cookes on her shoulders, she ultimately succumbs to duty, sacrificing everything, including love.

Luckily for Diana, fate intervenes. Her union with Copperton is brief and gives her a son whom she adores. But when her handsome, charming Ashton, now grown, returns to Saratoga with his college roommate, the real scandal and tragedy begin.