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John Frayne gained a fortune but lost two families in his years spent in the West. Now, in January 1809, he has returned to New Forge in the state of New York to reclaim his father's confiscated lands and the affection of an abandoned son. Upon his arrival, he witnesses a disturbing series of occurrences near the ruins of his family home. A grieving young woman in ragged clothes slides a wrapped body through a hole in the frozen surface of the Bay of Spirits. Soon after, she is set upon by a trio of thugs - and only through Frayne's timely intervention does she escape an outrage worse than the one she has already endured.
The woman is well known to the people of New Forge: a mute "madwoman" whose guarded, secret name is Jennet Trevor. Frayne - whose own life has been tainted by guilt and grief - knows what it is to suffer disgrace and is drawn to the beautiful and damaged woman. When she is declared indigent and insane and put up for auction, it is Frayne who bids for her future.
But he can never own this perplexing, wild creature. For Jennet is not bad, but she is a woman courageously determined to weave her life with threads of her own choosing. Others will be drawn to her as she and Frayne strive to make a home in a crumbling manor on dangerously disputed land - some to be healed, some to destroy. But only the respect, love, and kindness of the damned and secretive Frayne can give Jennet the wings to fly above a coarse and killing world that is closing in on them - and impel her to share with him her true and extraordinary self.
