1912. Fifteen-year-old Kate Truscott leaves her small Hampshire village to become a nursemaid to five children she's never met. She's looking forward to a new adventure. Life in town with the wealthy Winton family is different to anything Kate has known before. But she enjoys looking after her charges, becoming firm friends with Clara, the eldest daughter, and noticing that 18-year-old Philip, the eldest son, is so very handsome. But Kate knows that she would be considered an unacceptable match for a wealthy banker's son, so when gardener Archie asks her to walk out with him, Kate agrees, though her heart belongs to Philip. Then war breaks out. Both Philip and Archie enlist in the army and head to France, leaving Kate bereft. And pregnant. Facing the horrors of the workhouse, what will happen to Kate as a penniless unmarried mother in wartime?