Parson Harding's Daughter

The Reverend Henry Harding, parson to the excellent living of Stoke Abbas, was a handsome and prepossessing man. Unfortunately fate had seen fit to bless him with a family of extremely plain and unprepossessing children. Caroline was the least offensively plain according to Lady Lennox, but the entire Lennox family also admitted that Caroline was the most insignificant person in the county of Dorset.

Caroline, already twenty-six, was bullied by her elder sister, was nervous in company, and had no prospects at all. She had one golden memory, of an admirer when she was eighteen, but John Gates, nephew to the Lennox family, had gone to India and forgotten her. Or so she thought.

When Lady Lennox summoned her and said that Johnny Gates had sent a proposal of marriage, Caroline at first declined. She suspected that somehow Lady Lennox--for reasons of her own--had contrived and pressured her erswhile suitor into proposing. But within a few short weeks tragedy had overtaken Caroline. The little contentment and security she had known vanished from her life and left her no option but to accept Lady Lennox's offer.

In October of 1776, Caroline Harding set sail for India, to a new life, and a man she had not seen for eight years.