The naval Battle of Copenhagen cost Captain Will Dormer an eye and a leg. The battle to establish himself as Viscount Claremont of Belford Park could cost him his life. He feels completely at sea as owner of an estate, but his father and two brothers managed to kill themselves in a drunken carriage accident. Along with an estate he had not seen since he was sent into the navy twenty years ago, he has inherited his cousin Frederick (who thinks he should be the viscount), his brother's penniless widow (a beautiful nitwit), and her bitter mother. Feeling in dire need of help, he marries the orphaned daughter of his naval mentor. She assumes he needs her to manage a bankrupt manor and is horrified to find that it is instead a magnificent estate. Neither of them feels adequate to this new position, but they must learn and survive attempts to undermine and even kill them.