Annabelle, beautiful Anna, is distraught. He doesn't realize that Annabelle despises him for his defection, or that her son belongs to him. Annabelle doesn't know that Stephen doesn't know these things. They both find out soon enough. The great manor house of Weston Hall is filled with cousins and sibs who have grown up together, tasted the wide world, and returned with burdens and agendas of their own.
Accidents begin to occur.
Stephen and Annabelle are drawn closer and closer by their shared memories and present dilemmas. Eight Cousins and A Rose in Bloom came particularly to mind. But the most engrossing aspect of all these novels is the way the reader is drawn intimately into the story. Only a writer with Joan Wolf's mastery of the language can accomplish this. Since readers will not be treated to a description of the hero's every libidinous whim, other means must be employed to convey the intensity of feeling between Annabelle and Stephen.