When their father dies, none of the three Harcourt girls are particularly upset. The loss of the family's income, however, is not something so easily overcome. When their mother Anna discovers that they have been left penniless, she decides to move them out of London and back to her hometown in Scotland. Helen, the demanding eldest sister, decamps almost immediately to Edinburgh in search of the excitement and refinement Ryddelton cannot offer. Rosalie, having always lived in her more beautiful eldest sister's shadow, begins to come into her own. And Jane finds an education she could never have gotten at Oxford in her work as a secretary for Mrs Millard, an eccentric biographer currently residing in the village. Anna's daughters seem to be settling down to their new life until Ronnie, a tall, broad-shouldered scientist, steps into their lives . . .