When wayward, sophisticated Christabel is forced to take an extended country holiday she foresees only long days of bucolic boredom and sexual ennui. But she has reckoned without the hidden agenda of Nicholas, her deviously sensual husband, and the presence of unexpected stimuli within the grounds of a brooding old mansion house. Soon, she is drawn into a web of transgressive eroticism, where power and pleasure shift and change like the shadows playing across Collingwood's secretive walls. Drenched in this unusual and kinky atmosphere, Christabel learns lessons the jaded city could never teach her.