She had sent him away though she had fallen in love with him. There she meets again the man, a notorious libertine, who fifteen years earlier had flirted with her and tempted her although at the time she was a married young mother.
But on the way there is carriage trouble, and she is forced to spend half a day and a night at a small country inn in an obscure village. Now, at the start of her own story, at the least opportune moment-the Westcott family has gathered in Bath to celebrate the christening of her new grandson-she snaps for no apparent reason and bewilders everyone by leaving for home alone. Viola struggled for two years to adjust to the new realities of her life, but rather than deal with her anger and bewilderment she pushed it all deep while assuming an outward manner of calm dignity. Her son, who had inherited the earldom and the fortune on his father’s death, was disinherited. Thus her marriage was bigamous and her three children were illegitimate. The forty-two-year-old Viola was Viola Westcott, Countess of Riverdale, for twenty-three years until the death of her husband brought with it the discovery that he had still been married to someone else when he wed her.
0 kommentar(er)
