1919. Miss Rina Capel granddaughter of the Laird of Stavondale has one ambition - to set aside her life of privilege and become a nurse. But when she is summoned back to Bonnybrae to see her dying grandfather just before her 18th birthday he reveals to her family secrets which turn her world upside down. In love with a man she can't have and facing marriage to a man she has never met Rina must draw on all her reserves of strength and female guile to escape a fate to which her dissolute parents would condemn her.