In a time of approaching war and terrorism, spectacular wealth and financial disasters, the private world of three famous Londoners becomes a public scandal. Lord Derby - unhappily married and the richest as well as the ugliest man in the House of Lords - is the relentless suitor of England's reigning queen of comedy, Eliza Farren. His chief rival is the aristocratic widow Anne Damer, a sculptor who, as the rumor has it, loves women.

Set in parliament, on stage, the racetrack, as well as the intimate salons of the Beau Monde, the best-selling author of Slammerkin evocatively brings to life a world where everyone wears a mask and where erotic liaisons prove as dangerous as political ones.