Miss Cassandra Hampshire is yet another poverty-stricken young lady of quality, but her luck is about to turn, for her distant relative, Lucinda Benedict, has willed her a small estate rather incongruously known as Wormhill. But the gift comes with a catch. Cassandra only inherits the estate if she and Philip Rayburn, Earl of Hawkedon, can share the residence for the space of two months without killing each other.
You see, Lucinda Benedict was a romantic, and she believed that putting these two fine people in each other's company would prove to be a fine bit of matchmaking. The only problem (other than these two very matchable people killing each other) is that Lucinda didn't realize that she would be an earthbound ghost until the marriage took place.