Penelope Featherington is in love with Colin Bridgerton, the brother of her best friend, and has spent half her life watching him from a distance. She believes she knows everything about him until she discovers a deeply hidden secret and fears that she doesn't know him at all.
Colin Bridgerton is tired of being considered merely a brainless charmer and of everyone being obsessed with Lady Whistledown, the infamous author of the scandalous pamphlet, who doesn't publish a single issue without mentioning him on the front page. However, when Colin returns to London from a trip abroad, he discovers that Penelope Featherington, the girl who haunts his dreams, has her own unspoken secrets.
Nothing in his life is the same anymore... The elusive bachelor faces a great dilemma: will this girl threaten his destiny or is she the promise of a happy ending?