Art historian Nicholas Ochterlonie is the very model of a modern English gentleman, with a perfectly ordered life. But when his wife inexplicably demands a divorce, he finds himself risking his professional reputation, breaking the law, and embarking on an affair with the mysterious Julian, beautiful and badly damaged by her past with a Russian gangster. Protecting Julian from the Mafia gives Nicholas an intoxicating new sense of himself, but he soon finds himself out of his depth.