Lord Sherringham is determined to gain access to his Trust, and in order to do so he must marry. After the Beauty he avowed to love turns him down, he proposes to his old childhood playmate, the penniless orphan Hero. Hero has worshiped him all her life, so of course she agrees to marry him. But the newly-weds find that life is not as simple as they'd supposed: Hero is but 16, with no knowledge of society or much of propriety, and Sherry is continually having to explain the (rather nonsensical, arbitrary, or hypocritical) rules by which she must abide.
tbc