Escapade

Charlotte Comyn is a sheltered seventeen-year-old when her childhood companion, John Thornton, proposes marriage. On the surface, theirs seems an ideal match: the union would represent a merger of two of England's more powerful banking houses. But Charlotte feels there is more to life than an early and stifling marriage. Having recently lost her grandmother, and feeling unwanted and unloved in Hull, she takes refuge in London with her mother's estranged friend, Beth Prior, an acclaimed actress and the scandalous toast of the town. Beth welcomes Charlotte, but knows gossip-hungry London is no place for them. Instead, they travel to Sicily, where Beth is sent on a mysterious mission by the lover she hopes to marry. Nothing turns out as expected, and they find themselves caught in a hotbed of intrigue, where danger lurks behind every smiling faces. Patronized by the formidable old queen, and surrounded by charming young men, whom should Beth and Charlotte trust? From a much-loved author of historical romantic fiction, ‘Escapade’ is the gripping tale of two young women who defy the conventions of their age as they search for love and independence amidst the political turmoil of eighteenth-century Europe. Jane Aiken Hodge (December 4, 1917 – June 17, 2009) was an American-born British writer.