MrsLaetitia Rodd is the impoverished widow of an Archdeacon. She is also a private detective of the utmost discretion. Taxed by Sir James Calderstone - a wealthy and powerful industrialist - to investigate the backround of an ¿unsuitable¿ woman his son intends to marry, she travels to the family seat, Wishtide, in the guise of a governess. But deep in the frozen Lincolnshire countryside her astute wits are tested as never before when she discovers that the Calderstone have more to hide than most.