In the late twentieth century, Miranda Tattersall - the iconic model 'Rags' - becomes the third wife of Lord Frederick Stratton, so beginning a love affair with the Strattons' house, Ladycross, near Northumbria's great Wall. Roberta Govan, long divorced after a brief and disastrous marriage, finally buys a place of her own, away from all past attachments and associations. Or so she thinks. Claudia, Rags, Bobby: their stories are linked by a wild and beautiful place; the events that brought them to it; and the powerful emotions that make it 'home'.