The story opens with Nora Summers, a respectable Nanny, torn between the love she had for two people. Johnny, the handsome gipsy, and Anne, the five year old in her care. Although she struggled with her dilemma, deep down she knew her choice would be Anne. So she ended the affair with the gipsy two weeks before Anne's parents - Mr. & Mrs. Cullins - the well-known Archaeologists, arrived home from Peru. But they dismissed Nora within hours of their arrival placing Anne in a boarding school run by a close friend, Mrs. Green. Heartbroken, Nora went to see the gipsy. Two weeks previously the gipsy casts his eyes on Anne for the first time. Why did he tremble with hatred? Why the storm of bitter words? "On my wife's grave I will take revenge." He spat out pushing Anne's hair back revealing the brown mark behind her ear. "Now I know who the murderer is I'll fix him!" The story takes you to the beautiful countryside in Kent then to the equally beautiful countryside in County Clare in Ireland. In the space of eleven years, a combination of love, hate and tragedy followed as each calendar year replaces the last.