At Clockmakers Cottage on the rugged Lancashire coastline, Amy Macfarlene, her younger brother and sister, Edmund and Vicky, together with Aunt Anne Shawcross, are busy making ready for their sister Fanny's wedding - and apprehensive lest their father's packet, Jenet Rae, doesn't sail home to Monks Quay in time for Ramsay Macfarlene to walk his eldest daughter down the aisle at All Hallows. Something other than that is causing Amy sleepless nights, though. While working as a maid at Whiteladies Grange, home of the wealthy and powerful Paslew family, Amy overheard a bitter argument between Fanny's betrothed, Theodore Buxton, and his younger brother, Nicholas . . . Fearful for her sister's future happiness -- and indeed for the safety and well-being of the whole Macfarlene family -- Amy turns to her childhood sweetheart and loyal friend, Dan Ainsworth . . .