Miss Katherine Lockhart is a woman of sense and reason. She has managed her brother's household in an efficient manner for years. When he marries she finds her position in his household increasingly untenable and is sent to Helagon, his property in Cornwall. She finds a derelict house, an untamed landscape, and a man with a wild past.
Harry, Viscount Treleven has a zest for life and an irrepressible sense of humour. But when he returns home after five years in exile, eager to take up the threads of his old life, he finds they have been slowly unravelling in his absence. When Miss Lockhart stumbles into his orbit their lives become entangled in ways he had never imagined.