The story grew out of a very small incident between two minor characters, Roz Trevaskis and Branoc Casvellan, who appeared in Devil's Prize, published in January this year by Robert Hale. In Devil's Prize Roz was a friend of that book's central character, Tamara Gillis. During the great storm that led to the book's climax, most of the villagers took refuge in the chapel where Roz was helping look after the injured. Branoc Casvellan arrived bringing food and blankets. Their eyes met and in that instant I knew Roz harboured a secret admiration for him she had not confided to anyone, even Tamara. I knew Branoc was attracted to Roz but refused to acknowledge it even to himself. Discovering what had happened in their lives to make these two the people they are, then following the struggle against emotion and circumstance that each of them faces during the story, totally absorbed me. Roz was born into a respectable family, the granddaughter of a clergyman who is also a justice. But a combination of desperate circumstances has reduced Roz to working at the Three Mackeral Inn in Porthinnis. In order to pay the fines incurred by her alcoholic mother for 'drunken and disorderly behaviour', Roz has put herself in debt to free-trader, Will Prowse, who has blackmailed her into smuggling. When her half-brother, Tom, is offered a job as apprentice groom on Branoc Casvellan’s estate, Roz realizes this is an opportunity to dig her family out of trouble. Then Casvellan's brother catches smallpox, and it falls to Roz to nurse him - bringing her into close contact with her handsome employer. But how will Branoc - and his family - react when the truth of Roz's past, and her involvement with the local smuggling trade, comes out...?
