Kitty Clegg has always accepted hard work in her job as a kitchen maid at the manor farm. But now, at sixteen, she seizes the chance to go up in the world and become a lady's maid.
Handsome Jack Thorndyke has held Kitty's adoring gaze more than once. As he prepares his gleaming threshing engine for its winter work, he finally asks her to be his chosen. Carried away by her excitement, Kitty fails to heed the warnings whispered into her ear that Jack is far from the marrying kind. Worse still, his playful charm has attracted another - a young girl far above his station.
Will Kitty's dreams to scattered like chaff upon the wind? Or can she hold on to a very special kind of love: a love which will bring both heartache and joy to the manor in the turbulent decades to come?