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 moorland estate. He resolves to tame her or destroy her for having the impertinence to leave him. And since her has her adored six-month-old son in his hands, it seems there is nothing that Amy can do except return to his power and suffer the consequences. The gamekeeper they call Duffy has never seen anything quite so brave as Amy 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. 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.