At the end of World War II, London Society was beginning to lift itself out of the doldrums of rationing and austerity, and Enid Talbot, who prided herself on being a hostess par excellence, had resumed her lavish entertaining.
To one of her cocktail parties, she had invited her favourite and most eligible bachelor, Clayton Wood. An ex War Correspondent, he was handsome, charming and attractive, and it was a great delight to her to introduce him to one of the many young women she hoped might stir his interest.
What she had never expected was that he would fall deeply in love with a French refugee—Madeliene Dubois. No one knew anything about her. Her past was a closed book. She claimed to be a widow who had escaped from Paris via the French underground.
But Clayton’s course was set on that first night he met her. She would bring him great happiness, tragedy, the responsibility for another life, and the unravelling of a secret past that would change his life forever.