Smuggler-turned-entrepreneur Marsden Griffith Knighton is bent on doing whatever it takes to make his trading company as big as the East India Company. When Grif`s uncle contacts him to say that he is prepared to sign over his vast estate to his bastard nephew, Grif can`t resist the prospect of such an infusion of capital. But there`s one condition: in order to inherit, Grif must marry one of his uncle`s three daughters, who are infamously known as the Swanlea Spinsters. To avoid such an alliance, Grif cooks up a dangerous plan. He will pretend to be a servant, while his man of affairs, Daniel Brennan, takes over Grif`s identity and courts one of the spinsters. However, when Grif arrives at his uncle`s estate and meets the beautiful Rosalind, he begins to regret the masquerade.