Twenty-year-old Geneva Tibbetson's association with the Earl of Ashby goes back to her childhood, when he gave her a pendant with a blue stone, and told her that if she looked at a new moon through it and the landscape turned the colour of amaranth then anything she wished would come true. However, as the impoverished niece of the Reverend James Batterby, she spends most of her time looking after her eight much-loved male cousins, and she hasn't seen the Earl, whose uninhabited house the boys spend much of their time playing in, for years. Having been dissatisfied with his life for some time, Sorle Ashby returns to the country to find a wife, and catches the boys and Geneva in the house. Mistaking Geneva for a felon he injures her, but things take a turn for the better, when, charmed by Geneva's beauty and forthright nature, the Earl offers her employment as his social secretary. Soon, however, the pendant he gifted her so many years ago lands her in serious trouble, and Geneva and Sorle must struggle with the judgement of local society before they can come to terms with their feelings.