Una prometedora figura de la poesía inglesa se quita la vida una noche, junto a un oscuro lago, en el transcurso de una fiesta de la alta sociedad. Los únicos testigos son dos hermanas que desde entonces no han vuelto a dirigirse la palabra.
A long lost letter arrives in the post and Edie Burchill finds herself on a journey to Milderhurst Castle, a great but moldering old house, where the Blythe spinsters live and where her mother was billeted 50 years before as a 13 year old child during WWII. The elder Blythe sisters are twins and have spent most of their lives looking after the third and youngest sister, Juniper, who hasn?t been the same since her fiancé jilted her in 1941. Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother?s past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in ?the distant hours? of the past has been waiting a long time for someone to find it.