Lillian's spirits are crushed the day that her sister Emily reveals the secret of Lillian's birth. Still, Lillian refuses to believe Emily's claim that she is evil, but when tragedy befalls those around her she begins to believe the grim reality. Her heart is torn anew when Papa subjects her to the most brutal degradation in a drunken haze. Then Papa loses 'The Meadows' in a card game and Bill Cutler will only return the plantation if Lillian marries him. She must make a bold new beginning as the mistress of a hotel called Cutler's Cove.