Marina was nothing but a romantic child, weaving childish fantasies - the seaside cottage where she lived with her grandfather, devoted to the old man and his music, had become almost a citadel. Then Gideon Firth came to Basslea, and suddenly nothing was the same. He was everything she was not - sophisticated, urbane, powerful - and yet she found herself responding to his magnetism in a way no unawakened girl should. He seemed to wield a power that she did not understand, and it was not until he forced her to recognise the truth for herself that Marina realised what was happening to her, and what had happened.