Jack Langton is about to be married to Clarissa, the virginal young daughter of his business partner.

Helen Fairchild runs a school for respectable young ladies, where she teaches her young charges how to please their future husbands in bed. The moment Jack accidentally discovers the secret of her school, he wants lessons for himself. Not to learn how to please his future wife, however, but to learn how to please Helen, with whom he is instantly obsessed. Helen reluctantly agrees to take him as a pupil. At first she only wants to take this arrogant man down a peg or two and teach him how to treat a woman properly. But as the lessons progress, she gradually falls in love with him.

As Jack's marriage draws ever closer, he falls ever more under Helen's spell. But as a man of honor, he cannot withdraw his promise to Clarissa.

Helen's lessons must teach Jack and Clarissa, and Helen herself, to recognize what their hearts truly yearn for before all three of them can find the happiness they crave.