After a careless youth, Georgiana Spencer is delighted to be married off at 17 by her parents in 1774 to the Duke of Devonshire, one of England’s richest and most influential peers. Although his grace enables a lavish life-style in grand homes and privileged introduction to the highest society circles, it comes at a price. The duke only cares for her as future mother of a male heir, and punishes her failing in that respect severely, while enjoying serial adultery and ordering her to help raise his illegitimate offspring, without omitting her sole confident Bess Foster. Even after the birth of a son, her indiscreet affair with rising politician Charles Grey is intolerable.