As she drew nearer the great hall, Sarah fought back the fear and dark memories that had made her a stranger at its gates. Six years ago she had been a baronet's daughter, and this had been her home, but her father Sir Gore Sefton, has left everything to his brother. Now, sixteen and fatherless, she was an actress begging her aunt, Lady Sefton, to take herself and her mother back into the family.

But Lady Sefton rejects her appeal. Her aunt drove Sarah away with the bitter words that she was not a Sefton, and worse, that her true father was unknown. Cruelly hurt, Sarah vowed there would come a day of reckoning - when Lady Sefton would be humbled and Sarah would again rule her ancestral mansion.