A beautiful young woman, Aphra Devereaux leaves Paris after the death of her father to live in the mansion that was her deceased sister, Lady Freya Fitzroy's home. She finds the once grand Stoneleigh is now gloomy and decaying. Additionally her sister's husband Sir Roland is now a deranged drug addict. To her surprise she also finds there her sister's neglected child, of whose existence she was unaware and a woman of dubious character appears to be managing Roland's household. The society background of her young life has not conditioned her for what happens at Stoneleigh or the filth and lowlife of the London streets and the hypocritical upper class London Society that she experiences. A dark, gothic tale of disillusionment, tragedy, loss, rape, lunacy, child abuse, and frustrated love set in Victorian England.