It seemed like the end of the world to Birdie when an accident put an abrupt end to her flourishing career as a ballet dancer. So while she waited to pull herself together and work out what to do with her life now, she found a temporary job in Menorca, looking after the small ward of the lordly Vulcan, Conde de la Conquista de Retz. This, he explained, would leave him freer to look around for a wife. But only when he decided that Birdie was to be that wife did her problems really begin for did he love her or not? And did she love him or fear him?