At a ball in Regency London in 1816, the Marquess of Huntingdon, a fashionable sophisticate and handsome rake, dances with the mysterious and desirable Maeve. He decides to do whatever it takes to make her his mistress. But Maeve - part gypsy, part mystic - doesn't want to be any man's mistress. She values her freedom. What she does want is for the Marquess to help her friend, Lady Caroline, avoid a loveless marriage to his cousin, a man old enough to be her father.