Born amid the grandeur of the Yorkshire moors, Olivia Heron is capriciously abducted by her mother to accompany her on an elopement to Paris. Growing up in France's luxurious resorts and heady salons, Olivia is both witness and hostage to her mother's feckless passions. Either in the lap of luxury or pursued by creditors, Olivia's early life is precarious and rootless, until one day on the Cote de Azur she meets her brother, Guy, for the first time.

Heir to the family estate of Clarrow Fell in Yorkshire, England, Guy is on his way to South Africa, where trouble is expected with the Boers. Olivia is immediately entranced by the charm of this perfect English gentleman, so different from the wiles and chicanery of her mother's troupe of suiters. Soon after, Guy is killed in Africa and his inheritance becomes Olivia's. The family moves to the moors and mill towns at her insistence, to live in the manner in which Olivia feels she was born.

With sure and subtle touch, Brenda Jagger begins her tale of intrigue and family secrets. Her is the old Squire Heron, impatiently awaiting death because the landed England he knew is fast disappearing; Robin, Olivia's country-gentleman husband, sensitive, deeply loving, yet doomed; Alys, Olivia's cousin, whose fate is tied more closely to Olivia's destiny than either can know; and finally, Max de Haan, the black sheep of the family, who has made a fortune in the African gold fields and has returned with the open intention of buying the manor for himself.

...In this powerful drama of Olivia's bid for freedom from the Victorian past, and stability in the face of an uncertain future, the last days of Pax Britannica--the days of grace--are spun out before the cataclysmic Great War intervenes.