Velvet and Steel

by Elizabeth Daish

While Cromwell and the Royalists fight for power, cities and even families are divided. As the battle for Litchfield swings between Roundheads and Royalists, Hope Levitt, lady's-maid to Lady Hester Clinton, is torn between her dread of becoming the mistress of a powerful man and her newly aroused passion for a French nobleman. When she is kidnapped by the husband of her late mother she comes to believe that marriage to her love is impossible, but in a surprising development there is a glimmer of hope for a brighter future.