Kirsten MacGregor, an orphan in the 1850s, was left in the hands of a cruel baby farmer Somehow she survived her terrible childhood, only to be sold to a vicious master at the age of fourteen, until they were separated by a storm Rescued by the Flynn family she gave birth to a child at the same time as Florence, mistress of the great house nearby, was told that her newborn son was dead The two women entered into a secret bargain that was to change Kirsten's fortune and place her in the middle of a bitter feud