'I ain't always going to be poor, I made me mind up to that.'

Dismissed from her position as housemaid under a cloud of misunderstanding, Tilly True is forced to return home. But Tilly is determined to make something of her life and, rather than admit the truth to her poverty-stricken family, she sets out once more in search of employment.

Her journey takes her to the London law courts, a grim parsonage in one of the most notorious parts of the East End and a house of ill-repute. But when she falls for the dangerous charms of Barnaby Palgrave, Tilly soon finds that her troubles have only just begun ...