To Sir Robert Blenkinsopp, his frail, exquisite wife Amy is just another possession - to be used, misused or discarded like anything else at Newton Law, his grand estate on Northumberland's wild moore.

The gamekeeper they call Duffy thinks he has never seen anything quite so brave as Amy Blenkinsopp as she faces up to her husband - and is overjoyed when the brute is found unconscious at the bottom of his own staircase, deprived of the power of speech and movement. With the help of Sir Robert's servants and the increasingly devoted Duffy, she makes the estate not only happier but richer as well.

But Sir Robert Blenkinsopp is not dead. Imprisoned in the wreck of his body, his only companion a loathesome servant, he is plotting a vicious revenge on Amy, on her children, and on the man who has come to love her.