In a village near the Welsh marches in 1820s England, outward appearances and behavior are important. Mary Burnley refuses to conform. A young woman, widowed and shunned by her village.A clergyman, new to his parish and congregation.An unknown, unforgivable past.St. Edmund Wood, a refuge.In Regency England, Mary Burnley returns to her home after eighteen months of marriage; she is scorned and shunned by the village, and her mother. When Mary meets the Rev. Mr. Nathaniel Godwin, the new curate for the village church, life becomes a little less bleak. It is in the mysterious and beautiful St. Edmund Wood where a dark, unknown past is revealed, and it is in St. Edmund Wood where her new-found happiness will either be made, or broken.