The impoverished Greeve family used to say in moments of financial crisis, 'There's always Great-Aunt Tabitha' — thinking of the fortune which the very old lady was due to leave them. The one exception was Leslie Greeve, for whom the future meant only Oliver Bendick — the man it was generally agreed she would one day marry. But when Great-Aunt Tabitha did considerately die, the way ahead was not so simple as it had seemed. Into their lives (not least Leslie's) burst Reid Carthay, self-confident, cynical, a disturbing stranger with power to affect all the members of the Greeve family without exception...