Beautiful young Baroness Janet 'Jenny' Easdale, not quite of-age when her widowed father died, has become the ward of Lady Phaeline, a kinswoman. Phaeline's husband Lord Dunwythie, duty-bound to settle Jenny and her inherited estates into a marriage, accepts Phaeline's younger brother Reid as Jenny's betrothed. Jenny thinks Reid is spoiled and irresponsible, but she has no choice but to obey. At her betrothal feast, Jenny impulsively slips away with the hired minstrel troupe - her hope being to enjoy one last adventure before submitting to an odious marriage. Realising Jenny is missing, Phaeline's older brother Sir Hugh Douglas agrees to search for her. A knight and baron who won his spurs heroically in battle, but lost his beloved wife in childbed, Hugh catches up with Jenny and the troupe, to find that she has just learned of a secret plot among the minstrels to attack the most powerful lord in Scotland - Archibald Douglas. Desperate to prevent this attack, Jenny asks Hugh to help her warn Archibald. Thus allied, the duo discover - to their surprise - a mutual attraction too powerful to ignore.
