Arriving at an employment agency in the West End of London in search for some way to support herself and her beloved old Nanny after her father's gambling debts have left her in penury, the beautiful young Carina is offered a very unusual post in which she must take charge young of a young boy, the son of one, Lady Lynche.
On visiting her at her lodgings Carina is dismayed to find that Lady Lynche, an Oriental lady, is at death's door and so is reluctantly persuaded to take her child, Dipa, to his father in the English countryside.
Arriving at the vast and imposing Lynche Castle in the depths of Gloucestershire, however, she finds that the child is far from welcome and that Lord Lynche, although more handsome than any other man she has ever seen, is living a dissolute bachelor's life with his disreputable friends, who only want to gamble day and night at cards.
As well as the ghosts that apparently linger behind The Castle's imperious walls, the place is haunted by a sense of shame and misery, for what Carina knows not, but she is determined to find out.
Slowly the veils of secrecy and mystery are peeled away and the darkness is lit up with the fire of love.