Within weeks letters would be burned, pages torn. Promises would be broken and hearts betrayed. But for now the countryside languished, golden and fading... Cecily Chadwick is idling away the long, hot summer of 1911 when a mysterious countess moves into the large, deserted country house on the edge of her sleepy English village. Rumors abound about the countess's many husbands and lovers, her opulent wealth, and the tragedies that have marked her...