Although Faye Meryon was as English as they come, she had spent much of her life in Portugal; she had been educated there - and she was delighted, after an absence of years, to meet again her old school friend Estella Silveira, and to be invited to stay with her in Estella's uncle's romantic castle home. Faye thought she understood the Portuguese and their ways - but in the autocratic Conde Vincente de Rebelo Falcao she decided she had met her match. He made it perfectly clear that he disapproved of Faye's broad outlook and independent way of life; she knew that, like most Portuguese men, he would demand a woman who was gentle and submissive, content with staying in the home she had made for her husband family. Could she, even if she wanted to, turn herself into the kind of woman the Conde would most certainly demand?