About this story
You pull an oar toward the burning Hydaspes and watch England bury your name with it; you serve six years on Sarah Island and build a coracle of hide and pine. A false heir drinks your fortune in London, and a chaplain's diary holds what his silence cost you. Thirty-six chapters carry Hampstead Heath to the wreck of the Lady Franklin.
How it opens
You returned from abroad to North End House and found anger waiting in the garden.
Sir Richard DevineYour mother has confessed that the blood you bear is not mine.
Lady Ellinor held you back while her husband raised the cane he had meant to use.
I spoke to stop the blow, not to destroy my son's whole future.
Sir Richard DevineLeave my house, abandon my name, and her secret remains private.
Choose
I will go, but you will not call her fear a bargain freely made.
Punish me if you must, but do not publish what would ruin her.