Susannah Winslade is twenty-six, and drifting into perpetual spinsterhood as she tries to care for her sick stepmother, look after her young brothers and sisters, and keep her father sober and solvent. Her brother Henry isn’t much help, either. She doesn’t mind. Once upon a time, she met the perfect man and until someone like him comes into her life again, she’s happy at home, with her wildflower painting for solace. Samuel Broughton has come to Great Maeswood to make a new start as a country physician. It’s a small practice, but at least it’s steady work and everyone is friendly. Finally he’s reached a safe harbour where he can look about him for a wife. At last he has a future! But there’s something very strange going on at his surgery, and then, just when his hopes of a family of his own might be fulfilled, the unthinkable happens. Is there no escaping the past?