Dorothy has grown up in the years following the First World War, and during her bleak childhood she has always known that her family is different. Her implacable mother seems incapable of loving her, and the cruelty and deprivation she endures are watched silently by her browbeaten father.

Only her childhood friend, Steve, gives her any affection and, on the eve of the Second World War, she escapes from home and marries him.

But wartime takes from her both Steve and the baby they longed for. Rather than return home she escapes for the second time — to work at Burbank Hall, where the wounded are being treated.

Here she meets Andrew, a young doctor who has also known pain and deprivation, and as she blossoms once again, she discovers the answers to the secrets from her past.