Hope Merriott has always thought of herself as truly blessed; her three daughters bring her much joy. But when Hope’s fourth daughter arrives, her birth coincides with the failure of her husband Alexander’s newest business venture. And although Alexander’s Great Aunt Rosabel offers to solve the family’s financial worries by gifting Alexander her large, elegant house in Wiltshire, Hope is full of seemingly unreasonable foreboding...

At the beginning of the last century, that three women determine on making their own way at a time when to be independent was to risk social ostracism, or even tragedy, is partly due to the influence each comes to have on the others’ lives. The love knots that they face in their relationships finally unravel, but not before hearts have been broken, and scandals risked.

When Alexandra Stamford goes to stay with her Millington cousins at Knighton Hall, she knows nothing about the handsome stable lad Tom O'Brien. But are Alexandra and Tom really destined to be together?

1897. Rosamund bows her head and steps slowly down the aisle. The satin of her gown whispers against the stone floor and a single tear falls into the bunch of yellow roses twisted in her trembling hands. Despite rumors of his cruelty, Rosamund has no choice but to become this man’s second wife. After her wedding, Rosamund finds herself trapped in Sir Lucien Fitznorton’s lonely country estate. As she wanders the chilly halls, made shadowy by drapes of heavy velvet, she longs for the lost comforts of her childhood home, where she was the beloved only daughter to a doting father.

During the Second World War, Eastenders Miranda and Ted are sent to the country with another young evacuee, Roberta (Bobbie), to live with two unmarried sisters in their idyllic rectory. The time they spend with Aunt Sophie and Aunt Prudence turns their underprivileged lives into something very near to heaven: gathering wool from hedgerows, initiating do and mend campaigns, and trotting about the countryside with Tom Kitten, Aunt Prudence's pony.