While attending a religious boarding school, Pedro da Silva, an orphan, discovers his mother’s identity: the Countess Ângela de Lima. With the help of Father Dinis, Pedro’s real guardian and protector, the Countess is given a chance to get to know the child she was forced to abandon, the bastard son of a forbidden passion.

Young Pedro da Silva learns the story of how his mother had met the Count of Santa Barbara, and was forced to become his wife. Meanwhile, Lisbon’s high society is introduced to Alberto de Magalhaes, a successful nobleman who challenges any convention he deems fit, and his presence creates more mysteries. And Pedro da Silva will suffer his life’s first blow, in watching his mother retreat to a convent upon the death of the Count of Santa Barbara.

Alberto de Magalhães finally has his French history catch up to him in Lisbon, in the form of Elise de Monfort, a beautiful French woman with her heart set on vengeance. Meanwhile, Alberto has married, by coincidence, the Count of Santa Barbara’s former lover, Eugenia. And as our story always seems to gravitate around Father Dinis, it is revealed that Elise’s mother, Blanche de Monfort, had been the object of his passions during his youth spent in France...