The sea took her love. The man she married may have known exactly what happened to him. Sylvia Robson gave her heart to Charley Kinraid, a bold sailor whose dangerous life on the waves promised adventure and passion. Then came the news every woman in Monkshaven feared: his ship was lost, her lover drowned. With her prospects dwindling and her family pressing, Sylvia made a desperate choice. She married Philip Hepburn, a man of steady means but stiff manner, a man who had always loved her in silence. But as months pass, a terrible suspicion takes root. What if Philip knows more about Kinraid's fate than he has ever admitted? What if the man who promised her security is the one who sealed her true love's doom? Set against the grey Yorkshire coast and the press gangs of the Napoleonic Wars, Gaskell builds a tragedy of class, coercion, and the lies we tell to survive. Volume Two unfolds the devastating aftermath, as Sylvia discovers that some betrayals come wearing a wedding ring.
