Through thick mist and a cold east wind, Lavinia returns to Scotland. Up at the big house Mrs Farquhar is dying. Seeing Lachlan again,. Lavinia remembers her childhood holidays there: swimming in the loch, the picnics, bottle-feeding the lambs down at the farm and the evenings when they danced reels.
The third novel in Annie Murray's "Birmingham" series. While Genie's father is away fighting in World War II, her mother has a ruinous affair which leaves her pregnant; Genie's little brother leaves, never to return; while Genie herself meets a man who then disappears to war.