Having inherited a considerable fortune from her American Godmother, the beautiful young debutante, Zarina Bryden, really is the belle of the ball throughout London Society, wooed by an endless parade of insincere suitors in love with her money and not with her.

Both her mother and father have died and so she is an orphan, but a very rich one indeed.

So when her uncle and Guardian insists that she should marry the middle-aged Duke of Malnesbury, she is appalled at the idea and refuses point blank.

She then hears the sad news that her childhood friend, Rolfe, now the Earl of Linwood, is being forced to sell the neighbouring Priory with all its contents and its huge estate to pay off the accumulated debts of his now dead elder brother,

He is just about to start an auction for everything he owns when Zarina arrives to dramatically save the day with her huge fortune and she comes up with a cunning plan.

She makes an offer to use her inheritance to pay all The Priory's debts and avoid the auction if only Rolfe will make her his fiancée, thereby making marriage to the Duke impossible.

Reluctantly Rolfe agrees to her plan as he really has no other option.

And he also persuades Zarina to travel with him on a voyage to India – and she accepts his offer to escape a loveless marriage and perhaps to find a true love of her own at the end of the long voyage.