Annabella Lagrange was the only child of a wealthy family, owners of a glass-works in the North-East of England. When Annabella was seven, she thought the world a delightful place to live in, and only occasionally wondered why her parents never took her beyond the gates of their magnificent country estate. When she was ten she decided that the seclusion didn't really matter because when she grew up she would marry her handsome cousin Stephen and never be lonely again.

But when she was eighteen, Annabella learned the circumstances of her birth—and her entire world crashed around her...