When painter Lucy Lake meets Morten Andersen in Picasso's studio, the handsome Dane makes a poor impression. An arrogant philistine blind to Modern Art, whose scornful gaze makes her feel like a cheaply-dressed fool. But when she discovers his past - he came to Paris to escape memories of a disturbed first wife who recently killed herself - she softens, leading to a marriage where she will become his second 'difficult wife'. In her husband's dark, remote, rural house, she begins feeling the presence of the first wife circling ever closer, moving inside her. But is this ghostly possession or simply an undermined woman driven towards the brink of mental collapse? What price will she pay to save her sanity and her Cubist art? In this Gothic historical thriller, a talented young female artist must fight for survival in a world where men still rule.