When the creak of the garden gate heralds the arrival of an unexpected stranger, William Trenchard is puzzled but not alarmed. He cannot know the destruction this man will wreak on all he holds most dear.

The stranger announces himself as James Norton, but claims he is in reality Sir James Davenall, the man to whom Trenchard’s wife, Constance, had been engaged, and who had committed suicide eleven years ago. Sir Hugo, James’s younger brother, and his mother, Lady Catherine, refuse to recognize Norton and force Trenchard into an uneasy alliance against him. But Trenchard must plumb the depths of his own despair before the dark secrets of the Davenall family can finally, shockingly, be revealed.