A middle aged romantic, Richard Hunter has hit the buffers. Divorced and estranged from his children, he trains as a teacher and takes up a post in his home village, at his old school. Never more than arm's length away from a nervous breakdown, and hopelessly in love with his headmistress, Richard seeks solace in his boyhood haunt: Durleston Wood. But the wood now hides a secret, a mysterious woman kept hidden there as the apparent "property" of a villain. As he learns more of her fate, and her plan to transfer her "ownership" to him, he tells himself this is the last thing he wants, while wondering if it isn't actually something he needs more than anything, that far from destroying him, rescuing her could be the one thing that stops him from going under.

There's more to it than that of course, like when his beloved headmistress gets herself involved with a sleazy politician, and he knows it's going to end badly, but how many women can a man rescue? And why should he when neither of them turn out to be quite what they seem?