Harriet Ward, know as Hatty to her sisters, is treated with utter contempt by most of her family. Lacking the beauty that her older sisters inherited she is left without a dowry to care for their ill mother once her sisters are married off.

Sent to Portsmouth to live with her rumbustious uncle and cousins, Hatty turns her creative flair to poetry and believes she must become a governess. That is until handsome Lord Camber passes through town . . .