The misbegotten

Bath, 1821. Rachel Crofton seizes the opportunity to leave behind the binds of her unhappy employment as a governess and start a new life as the wife of a charming self-made merchant. Through her new husband's connections Rachel is invited to become the companion of the reclusive Jonathan Alleyn, a man tortured by memories of what he witnessed in the Peninsula War, and tormented by the disappearance of his childhood sweetheart, Alice, 12 years ago. Rachel's arrival into the grand house on Lansdown Crescent has a mysterious effect on those who live there, and suddenly it seems the secrets and dark deeds of the past can no longer be swept away. Starling, foundling servant to the Alleyn family, is convinced that Alice, the woman she felt as close to as a sister, was stolen from her. She is determined to uncover the truth about Alice's disappearance. Did she run away? Was there someone else? Or did something altogether darker occur? Others want only to forget, and will go to extreme lengths to do so. All is refinement and politeness in the grand drawing rooms of Bath society, but there are shattering truths lurking in the lives hidden behind closed doors. Rachel's marriage is far from the partnership she had hoped for, and her husband has troubling secrets of his own. She is drawn to Starling and her obsessive need to find the truth about her beloved Alice. As, together, they seek answers, they learn that courage comes at a high price, and that to resist the constraints of their social position is to risk everything.