Lady at the Lodge (published 8 December 2023) is the third novel in the Wentworth Family Saga, which is set in the final decade of the eighteenth century in England and France. These are turbulent times, and the Wentworth family is caught up in them because it is Anglo-French, and so its men and women have lives that are involved in events on both sides of the channel.
Much concerns the fate of a naïve young man, Gilles, whose mother died when he was a baby, and whose father is unknown, although two members of the wider family are suspected. The mystery remains, and in the aftermath of land confiscations his fate becomes bound up with the fate of the Breton manor of Kergohan (see my earlier posts), which may prove to be his inheritance.
Behind the turbulence lies a rebellion in Brittany, in which the British support the popular Breton uprising against the new French Republic. Gilles rashly becomes involved in the violence, and other members of the family risk their lives in saving him (the subject of the first novel, The Baron Returns). He becomes drawn into a tempestuous relationship with a young refugee called Héloïse from Saint-Domingue, the French plantation colony in the Caribbean, itself subject to a rebellion by those who have been brought there to labour as slaves. The cruelty of that world follows Héloïse across the Atlantic to her new home.
Yet the turbulence of the times does not just affect events in France. The young Amelia Wentworth in England is beginning to find her feet in society, but in Plymouth she attracts the attentions of a renegade young militia lieutenant, Jowan Tregothen, cynically on the lookout for a respectable fortune (see the earlier post on old Plymouth). She and her sister-in-law, Arabella, contrive to thwart his ambitions, but their clever and courageous plan creates a legacy of resentment, which leaves them open to the threat of revenge (the developing stories of the second novel, Heir to the Manor).
While Gilles and his beloved Héloïse learn how to adjust to the new world of the Republic, in separation from each other and at the mercy of those who do not wish them well, Amelia and Arabella walk open-eyed into the dangerous traps set for them by Tregothen…
From the rural settings of Devon and Kergohan to the bustling naval town of Plymouth in the earlier novels of the saga, the action moves in Lady at the Lodge to the narrow streets of the growing towns of Pontivy and Auray in Brittany, and to the pleasure gardens and ‘disorderly houses’ of Georgian London, the greatest city on earth.
The Baron Returns, Heir to the Manor, and Lady at the Lodge are all available as ebooks or in paperback from Sapere Books via Amazon ordering online.
Graham Ley 