Lucy Waring, after growing up in an all-girls mission in China, reluctantly moves to England to discover her native culture and solve a mystery of hidden treasure. Lucy Waring is a 17-year-old English girl born and raised in a Chinese mission for girls in the late 1800s - a mission for which she is solely responsible, now that Miss Prothero, the mission head, is bedridden and dying. Faced with the prospect of watching the children under her watch starve, Lucy travels to Chengfu to steal money only to be caught and thrown in prison, where she awaits a sentence that will likely result in the loss of her hand. To her surprise, she discovers that the cell beside her own is occupied by an Englishman, a dangerous man named Nicholas Sabine about whom she was warned only the day before. After reciting a mysterious riddle to her, he proceeds to listen to her story and decides to help her on one condition - that she marry him before his execution the next day.
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Dazed by events, and suddenly in possession of enough money to feed the mission's children for months to come, Lucy is shocked when relief from the mission society arrives just when she needs it least. Against her will, she is shipped back to England, a country she has never seen, to live with the Gresham family, who, to her bemusement, want her assistance in decoding the riddle Nick Sabine read to her in the prison cells weeks before. However, Lucy finds herself far from helpful. Unused to English ways, she constantly offends and irritates her hosts, aided only by the kind and worldly Mr. Marsh, their servant, who, as it turns out, is her father-in-law. Miserable with the Greshams, Lucy is relieved when circumstances allow her to move into the house of the Falcon family, the Greshams' rivals, whose son, Robert, was the man to warn her about Nick Sabine. Lucy, having finally managed to decode the mysterious riddle, is prevented from sharing her findings with Robert when her husband, presumed dead, suddenly appears to claim her.
Life with Nick is hot and cold; he never touches her, never enters her bedroom, and, for the most part, acts as if she doesn't exist, except on those rare evenings when he takes her out to dinner or the opera. Lucy is concerned her husband may be mentally unstable, and when she finds a note telling her he's gone to China to settle an old score, she fears he is attempting to hunt down Robert Falcon, who, she believes, has discovered the location of the treasure mentioned in the riddle. Impulsively, she persuades Nick's father to join her as she travels to China in the midst of the Boxer Rebellion, determined to stop her husband from doing something he'll regret. Instead, she finds him lying with a bullet in his chest, having been shot while defending her old mission from the Boxers. With her old friend, Dr. Langdon, to supervise her, Lucy removes the bullet and saves Nick's life. As he heals, they reveal their love for each other, both having believed the other to be indifferent. Their happiness is threatened when Robert Falcon, out of his mind with greed for the hidden treasure, appears with the intention of killing them both. They are saved by the timely arrival of Yu-lan, one of Lucy's prior charges at the mission, who shoots Robert in the back, ensuring happiness and riches for all.
Joyfully remarried, Lucy and Nick return to their home, where Nick carries her up the stairs to their room.
Best part of story, including ending:
I love the madly adventurous and romantic plot, which, while sometimes ridiculous, is extremely fun to read.
Best scene in story:
This book is full of great scenes, but my favorite is probably the moment when Nick finally reveals his love for Lucy. It's very sappy, but very romantic all the same.
Opinion about the main character:
I love Lucy's innocence and naivete, her tendency to blurt out the most atrocious things (like eating kittens!), and her unfailing ability to embarrass the prudish English people around her. I dislike her low self-esteem, though.
