A Falling Star
By Pamela Belle
Sir Alexander St Barbe is the black sheep of the St Barbe family…
The only son of the late Nathaniel St Barbe, he has spent the last several years in exile in Holland, living a dissolute and debauched life far from his well-respected family in England.
Now, however, he has returned to Somerset to claim Wintercombe as his inheritance — but his arrival is greeted with trepidation and foreboding. Bitter quarrels break out on his first night home and soon, the old fires of family passions and religious contention are raging.
Meanwhile Louise, who has escaped scandal in France to come to England in search of a husband, knows she should stay away from her attractive, fascinating cousin, but she finds herself unable to resist his allure.
But the turmoil at Wintercombe is only a drop in the troubled seas in which England finds herself. The Duke of Monmouth’s uprising brings disaster and tragedy to Somerset — and to the St Barbe family.