Uncle Silas

Maud Ruthyn is a shy heiress raised in near-total seclusion by her wealthy, sombre father at their mansion of Knowl. She grows up hearing only whispers of her uncle Silas, a black sheep of the family whose name was ruined by a gambler's suspicious death in a locked room at his estate years earlier. When her father dies, his will sends Maud to live with Silas as her guardian until she comes of age, with a fatal catch: if she dies before then, Silas inherits everything. At the decaying house of Bartram-Haugh, hemmed in by her uncle's brutish son and a cruel governess, Maud slowly realizes the ordeal her late father set her, and the danger closing around her fortune and her life.