Cassia Fallon has been married to her doctor husband for seven years when her godmother leaves her a vast fortune beyond her wildest dreams. She's determined to be sensible, to stay happy and in control - but suddenly, for the first time in her life, she is able to do exactly as she likes. She starts to question her marriage, her past, present and future. The money gives her confidence, and her husband Edward can only look on resentfully as she resumes her medical career, sheds some of her domestic burdens, reforms old relationships. And then more sinister questions arise. A chance convesation sheds doubt on the source of her legacy. Where did it really come from, how, and why? But by now the legacy, part benign influence, part brutal force, is an absolutely powerful entity all of its own - one that Cassia cannot resist.