A warm, funny and romantic story, adapted from Mary Wesley’s bestselling novel, of a woman forced to make a new life for herself in a Cornish seaside town. The beautiful Hebe has been cast out by her family after a teenage pregnancy to a masked stranger during a fiesta in Italy. She makes ends meet and pays for her son's school fees by cooking for old ladies and sleeping with a small syndicate of adoring men (the 'peacocks' of the title). There is a sub-theme of the antiques trade which draws some of the characters together and ultimately resolves the mystery of Hebe's masked lover.