Serena Reverton was married to a sadist. When he finally dies, she goes home to her brothers and, she hopes, respite. Then she learns she was sold at 15, and her brothers want to sell her again, having already squandered the little she was left by her husband. So she runs away and is rescued during a storm by Lord Middlethorpe. They seek safety in a farmhouse, and she seduces him--the only way she knows to please someone of the opposite sex. He sends her to his aunt but what will happen when it is discovered that she is pregnant? Can she expect a better life than the one she has escaped?