London in the seventeenth century was a city of violent contrasts. Rich and poor huddled together in narrow, verminous streets, victims of the same random fate. Sudden death was common to both, and this uncertainty bred a reckless disregard for life, not only in the filthy warrens of the shns, but among the silk and laces of the nobility. On a stormy autumn night, Cornelia Brent, a merchant's daughter, met the violent insolence of Charles II's immoral Court. She fled, but the hunt was up, and the wild rake, Sir Rendel Woodham, was not easily shaken from the scent. Beneath his languid silks he hid an iron will which he brought to bear upon the girl. Cornelia's love for the austere doctor, Andrew Belgrave, did not meet with appnwal from her social climbing family, who preferred Sir Rendels suit. Cornelia struggled, but she was trapped in a gilded net. It was to take the outbreak of the plague to show her how little she understood herself.