Elizabeth Thorne has finally seized the opportunity to assert her independence… She is twenty-five and slowly slipping into spinsterhood when she receives the unexpected bequest of a lonely house on the Sussex coast.

Her relatives are astounded that she decides to break with the present by moving from crowded London to Crowle Manor, delighted by the prospect of a quiet spell in the country. But on her way with a companion, Margaret Ellis, she wakes at at her room in the White Hart in Lewes to discover a strange letter addressed to the manor house has been slipped into her guide book. Who put it there and why?

The accidental possession of the letter, addressed to an unknown person at Crowle Manor, of all places, sets in train a series of grim adventures that try her courage to the utmost. A sinister pedlar who frequents the kitchen of the White Hart nd a mysterious travelling companion on the coach add to the gathering air of danger for Elizabeth.

As matters become deeper, Elizabeth finds herself reacquainted with her former lover, Robert Farnham, a man that she had once refused to marry out of loyalty to her sister. How is he mixed up in this bizarre affair? And how is it he does not seem to recognise her?

The mysteries surrounding her and Crowle Manor grow more and more intense, making Elizabeth realise her plans for a quiet country summer are unlikely to be fulfilled and that, on the contrary, there are threads in the story that could affect England’s survival in the war with Napoleon’s France – all with Crowle Manor at the centre.