Trapped in a loveless marriage at the turn of the twentieth century, a British noblewoman finds renewed passion with a young architect

Lady Sara Longford's once-storybook marriage is falling apart. Her husband, Ben Cochrane, a New York entrepreneur, married Sara in the hopes that a high-society English wife would improve his odds of entering New York's uppermost social strata, but so far those ambitions have remained unfulfilled, and the relationship has soured.

But things change when Sara meets up-and-coming draftsman Alex McKie, hired to build Cochrane's garish summer home in Newport, Rhode Island. When Cochrane sends Sara away to Newport to oversee the construction, Sara finds herself increasingly drawn to the charming Alex. As their relationship develops, Sara must chose between the safe life she knows and the forbidden love that threatens to destroy everything she holds dear.