June Bennett goes to Yorkshire to marry one of the richest men in Britain. Despite being twice her age, she knows what she is doing.
A young woman called June Bennett goes to see her father who is a London butcher to ask him for his blessing on her forthcoming wedding to a man twice her age, a millionaire tycoon who is her employer. She informs him that there will be no wedding celebration as such and that they will be getting married in a ceremony without any guests and with only the servants present at witnesses, at the large stately home in North Yorkshire, which, as she learns later, he rents from Geoffrey Howden, the local aristocrat who owns it but can no longer afford the upkeep of this family property. Her father gives her his blessing somewhat reluctantly and agrees to see her off at the London terminus from which she will take the train to her destination.
After changing in Doncaster, she is met upon arrival by a driver who works for her future husband, but the property's true owner has also arrived at the same time and asks the driver for a lift to the home of his friend, the highly eccentric but quite amusing retired army officer, Major Price. The two men persuade her to take tea with them and Howden offers to walk her back to the stately home, which he refuses to enter on account of a family curse about the dire consequences that will befall him or any other male holder of the title should this curse be disregarded.
June learns that her fiancé cannot fly back from Boston, where he had gone on business, because a volcanic eruption on Iceland has spewed large volumes of volcanic ash into the atmosphere that was considered to be hazardous to air traffic across the Atlantic. She also learned that he was going to New York in the hope of getting a flight from there, although it was not clear when these ash clouds would disperse. Before retiring to be for an early night, her housekeeper cum estate manager Briley tells her about a local tradition to the effect that if you rub your feet and make a wish, it will come true proved that one really believes in this.
The following morning, the weather is calm and sunny and Howden turns up and suggests that they take a bicycle tour of the grounds around the house, having obtained an extra bicycle for her to use. He also imparts some bad news that the ash clouds have now reached the UK, from where all transatlantic flights have been cancelled. They spend a couple of hours together but do not see eye-to-eye, as she find some of his ideas infuriating and does not understand his reasons for making frequent trips to war zones to take photographs of the suffering these conflicts are causing. On the way back to the house, she receives a call on her mobile from her fiancé informing her of further delays. He also asks her to visit his only friends in the area, the upper-class Carew family, consisting of a married couple and their precocious fourteen-year-old daughter.
As the days pass, she finds herself running into him more frequently and she begins to feel more at ease in his company, while also finding a confidant in Briley, to whom she relates her plans with regard to the house once she is married. She wishes to keep it open as their married home and retain all the servants, in order to be able to provide hospitality for her husband's business contacts. She also says that a spa and a hotel could easily be built in the grounds away from the house, as stressed business people pay well to unwind in the beautiful surroundings.
Eventually her fiancé manages to fly to Madrid and from there he goes to Paris where he takes the Eurostar service to London. He remains in the capital on account of some business meetings that he must still hold and asks her to join him there. Howden learns that she is leaving and goes to the house to bid her goodbye but does not enter but asks her to have the song Scarborough Fair played at her wedding. June pauses before leaving the house and reads the poem on a plaque on a wall that describes the curse, but notices that the last lines describe how the curse will be lifted should a girl enter the house with the man and remain with him all her life. She now leaves and Howden then enters and reads the same lines and then goes out to search for her but sees her coming towards him followed by the musicians who were playing Scarborough Fair at the village dance that they both attended, and are playing it now. They embrace and he carries her into the house in his arms, thus ending the film on a truly romantic note.
